


Look What You Made Me Do

by the_crownless_queen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Gen, M/M, Nemuri and Yuu are both useless lesbians, Nemuri is oblivious, PLEASE STOP, So much Quidditch, Yuu this isn't how you flirt, the erasermic is in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crownless_queen/pseuds/the_crownless_queen
Summary: It starts with Hizashi telling her the Hufflepuffs have a new Seeker.At first, Nemuri is merely curious, but then, she actually meets Yuu Takeyama, and she is furious. This girl is going down.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Facing the Past: Year 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16010900) by [AnxiousElfWalkingBy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiousElfWalkingBy/pseuds/AnxiousElfWalkingBy), [draconicPenartastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/draconicPenartastic/pseuds/draconicPenartastic), [dy_n_m](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dy_n_m/pseuds/dy_n_m), [Lucarn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucarn/pseuds/Lucarn), [TentacleBubbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TentacleBubbles/pseuds/TentacleBubbles), [the_crownless_queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crownless_queen/pseuds/the_crownless_queen). 



> So this started with the idea of Nemuri and Yuu being Quidditch rivals...  
> And then it kinda grew out of control.  
> Oops...  
> Still, I hope you guys enjoy this - it certainly was a blast writing it.

Nemuri knows that today is going to be an _interesting_ day when it starts with Hizashi sliding up on the bench next to her during breakfast. It’s not like it’s an unusual thing — for a Slytherin, Hizashi has never been really into the tradition part, and he sits at other tables at least as often as he sits at his — but it’s still rare enough this early that she does a spittake.

She pauses, fork halfway to her mouth, and sighs. “What is it, Hizashi?”

Hizashi grins excitedly as he starts piling up food on his plate. “You’ll never guess what I heard…” He pauses, winking dramatically, and Nemuri considers pushing him off the bench.

Only briefly, though. He’s still a friend.

“Well then, what _did you_ hear?” she asks, a little impatient.

Hizashi preens — it would look a lot more impressive if he wasn’t holding a forkful of omelet, and if said forkful wasn’t about to fall back onto his plate.

“You know how Rei graduated last year?”

Nemuri hums in agreement. “The Hufflepuff Seeker?” Her eyes widen in understanding and she leans forward in excitement. “You mean…”

“That I know who the new Seeker is?” Hizashi smirks. “Maybe.”

With a wordless growl, Nemuri reaches forward and slaps his forearm. Hizashi yelps.

“Don’t ‘maybe’ me, Hizashi!” She growls again, narrowing her eyes. “Tell me. _Now_. Who’s the new Hufflepuff Seeker?”

Just then, Shouta wanders in, yawning tiredly and looking like he hasn’t slept in days. Even though the Gryffindor is also not his, he sits next to Hizashi, who shuffles to leave him more room even though Nemuri is still holding onto his arm. She’d tease him for it — honestly, this crush of theirs is getting out of control — but that’s not her current objective.

Shouta’s eyes flicker between the two of them for a few moments before they focus on Hizashi.

“What did you do to make Nemuri this mad this early?” he asks with a frown as he starts pouring himself coffee.

Hizashi splutters. “Why is it _my_ fault?”

Shouta’s look clearly states ‘isn’t it always?’ and Nemuri bites back a laugh. Still, when he doesn’t answer Shouta’s question, Shouta turns his questioning look toward Nemuri.

Wincing at the dark purple bruises under his eyes, Nemuri replies, “He told me he knew who the new Hufflepuff Seeker was.” She leans back and crosses her arms, pouting. “And then he wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

Shouta rolls his eyes tiredly. “It’s Takeyama.”

Nemuri frowns and she lets go of Hizashi’s arm. “Who?” Her eyes flicker to the Hufflepuff table, searching it like this ‘Takeyama’ will suddenly appear and make themselves noticeable.

“Yuu Takeyama,” Hizashi explains, glaring half-heartedly at Shouta, who just ignores him with practiced ease. “She’s just a year below us, so she’s a fourth year, but rumors have it that she’s really good.” He cranes his head toward the Hufflepuff table and points out a cheerful looking blond girl. She’s laughing boisterously as she waves her hands around, and Nemuri feels her eyes narrow again.

She hums. Fourth year is a little old to join a Quidditch team as a Seeker, since the smaller they are the better — Nemuri herself joined in her second year, back when nobody could have predicted her growth spurt — but with Rei holding the spot until then, she supposes it had been unavoidable. Still, to prefer her over someone younger, who could play for more years too… That speaks of _some_ skill, at least.

“And she’s never played before?” Nemuri asks, her eyes falling back to Hizashi.

Hizashi shakes his head. “Not in any school match, no. At least not yet — Hufflepuff is up against Ravenclaw in three weeks, though, so you’ll see her then.” He nudges Shouta with a smile. “Excited for your House’s first match?”

“Yes,” Shouta replies, his tone as dry as the desert. “I’m ecstatic, even. Can’t you see?”

The conversation dissolves from there on, but Nemuri keeps that name tucked away in a corner of her mind.

 _Yuu Takeyama_ , huh? It sounds like Nemuri might be getting some new competition out there.

* * *

The first match of the season is, for once, not Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Instead, it’s Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw, and while Nemuri wishes she could be on the PItch, playing, she’s also much more interested in finally getting an eye on this new competition.

Ravenclaw’s Seeker, Thirteen — they’d been nicknamed after the number on their Quidditch jersey, but for some reason, that nickname had stuck and now everyone just called them Thirteen — is good, yes, but this will be the third year Nemuri spends playing against them. By now, she’s familiar with their way of flying and their tactics, so watching them doesn’t bring her much.

She’s much less familiar with Takeyama, though, and that’s who Nemuri plans on watching.

It takes her less than ten minutes of the match to realize that Takeyama is very much of a threat.

The blond girl is fast, and she’s skilled, with a broom to match. She’s still a little rough around the edges, though, with an unfortunate tendency to just plow right on through the other players when she catches sight of the Snitch — whether or not they’re on her team.

It hinders her at the moment, but if she ever manages to weaponize that _against_ her opponents, she is going to be deadly.

Hizashi’s scream of “ _AND TAKEYAMA CATCHES THE SNITCH, PUTTING THE HUFFLEPUFF TEAM AT 220-90! IT’S A WIN FOR HUFFLEPUFF, THE FIRST WIN OF THIS SEASON!”_ echoes in her ears painfully.

Usually, this is where Nemuri’d scream something back, because Hizashi may be the commentator, but that doesn’t mean he needs to blow out everybody’s eardrums doing it.

Not this time, though. This time, Nemuri only has eyes for the blond girl making laps of the Quidditch Pitch with her fist raised high, clenched around that golden ball.

This girl, she realizes with a sinking feeling, is definitely a threat.

* * *

Because even though Shouta doesn’t care for Quidditch, his House does, Nemuri ends up crashing the Hufflepuff victory party with Tensei and Hizashi.

Well, she’s more interested in this new Seeker than in the party, but for once Tensei agrees with her — he’s their star Chaser, so he’s also interested in scouting out the competition.

Hizashi is mostly there for the partying and the opportunity to spend more time with Shouta, but he does stick around long enough to compliment Takeyama on her catch again — as though he hadn’t done it enough times during the match itself — before he ducks out of sight, undoubtedly in search of their more antisocial friend.

“It’s Kayama, right?” Takeyama asks, a prideful grin on her face, and her voice drags Nemuri out of her musings. “You’re the Gryffindor Seeker?”

“Yup!” Nemuri replies with a grin, popping out the ‘p’. “That’s me.” And because Nemuri has always been helpless around pretty girls — and Merlin help her, but Takeyama is pretty — she just blurts out, “You were too reckless on the Pitch. Your flying was good, but you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t work with your team.”

“Huh,” Takeyama says, her eyes roaming over Nemuri’s body. Her smile grows cold as something like hurt flashes through her eyes — it’s gone so quickly, though, that Nemuri must have imagined it. “You look older than I thought you would.”

“I — What?” Nemuri stutters, blushing furiously and clenching her fists. Merlin, if she only had her wand right now…

Takeyama laughs, and where before the sound had seemed sweet, now Nemuri can only find it grating. “It’s not that bad,” she says. “It must be helpful to be able to pass off as older than you are.” She offers Nemuri another cold smile and spins around, vanishing back into the crowd.

Still sputtering mad, Nemuri whirls around to Tensei, who’s very clearly laughing at her over his drink. “Did you hear what that, that _cow_ just said to me?” She spits out.

“I heard.” Tensei laughs. “Sounds like you’ve got a fan,” he adds, patting her on the arm gently.

He doesn’t stay long, though, preferring to dive back into the crowd.

Screw finding Takeyama hot — now, Nemuri finds her _dead_ , wants to _crush_ her on the Pitch (and off the Pitch too).

 _Old._  Her. Nemuri isn’t _old_ — Takeyama is only a year younger than her, anyway, where does she get off saying Nemuri looks _old_?

She spots Takeyama’s pale hair as she chats up her teammates, and the younger girl just _smiles_ at her.

Nemuri growls back and goes to take a drink.

Maybe even two or three.

She can already tell she’s going to need so much alcohol to handle this. _So much alcohol._

(She’ll regret it tomorrow — even more so when Takeyama’s laughter, clear as bells, rings around in her head before the girl says, “Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much at your age.”)

(The detention she then gets for casting a Blasting Curse in the hallways is more than worth it, in her opinion.)

* * *

Hizashi corners her the next day, his green eyes laughing at her as he sits at the Gryffindor table again — this time for lunch, however. “So, Takeyama?”

Nemuri growls as she stabs her fork a little too enthusiastically into her food. “I _hate_ her. And _we,"_ she says, her eyes finding Tensei and then the rest of the Gryffindor team, “are going to _destroy those Hufflepuffs._ ”

Hizashi blinks and lets out an awkward laugh — it is a reaction Nemuri has cultivated over five years of exposure to her anger whenever he does something stupid. “Ah, isn’t that a little too…”

“ _Destroy them,_ ” Nemuri repeats, smiling widely. Her hands are clenched so tightly around her cutlery that her knuckles are white.

Hizashi laughs again, still awkward. “Well, I guess that at least it’ll make for an interesting match.”

Tensei reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Nemuri’s rage is reserved for Takeyama right now. We’re barely blips on her radar.”

As if to prove her point, Takeyama enters the Great Hall and Nemuri instantly starts glaring.

“See?” Tensei says. “Perfectly safe.”

Nemuri is only too happy to prove him wrong by pushing him off the bench so she can get a better look at what Takeyama’s doing.

She seems to only be eating, but she’s sitting with of her teammates. They could be discussing strategies.

“Right,” Hizashi says, inching away from her. “You know what, Nemuri? I think I’m going to go eat with Shouta today. At his table. Far, far away from here.”

“Good idea,” Tensei replies quickly. “I’ll come with you.”

Nemuri’s eyes widen as their words register. “This is an _excellent idea._ ” She snaps out her hands, grabbing hold of both their sleeves. “You two can be my _spies,_ ” she says, and the idea seems to become greater the more she thinks about it.

“I can’t go, obviously, because she’d suspect me — there was a thing in the hallway this morning,” she mumbles to herself, “but you two are perfect for this. Hizashi’s obviously there for Shouta so nobody will suspect him, and Tensei’s face looks too dumb for him to be able to spy on anyone —” “Hey!” “— sorry Tensei,” Nemuri adds without looking away from Takeyama, “but it’s true.”

“It’s kind of true,” Hizashi adds with an apologetic shrug when Tensei turns his betrayed eyes on him.

“But,” Hizashi continues, causing Tensei to perk up considerably, “just because we’d be good at it, doesn’t mean we’re going to do it. Right, Tensei?”

Tensei nods enthusiastically. “Come on, Nemuri, you know this is ridiculous — do you even hear yourself? You’re asking us to spy on Takeyama because she said one little remark you didn’t like — you do realize that’s playing right into her hand, don’t you?”

Nemuri bristles. “ _One little remark?_ ” She spits out. “She called me _old,_ Tensei, acted like I was practically a relic. I am _not a relic!_ I’m a far better Seeker than her, and I’ll prove it — but to do that we need to _crush_ them at our next match!”

She pauses to catch her breath, and smirks and arches an eyebrow when an idea hits her. Wisely, the boys back away from her — not that it will save them, but it’s still cute that they try.

“So, what you’re saying is that you can’t do it, then?” she asks, fluttering her lashes.

As expected, Tensei falls right into her trap, bristling as he sputters an answer. “Of course, I can do it!”

And just like that, he’s off, leaving Hizashi to stare after him in consternation and Nemuri to gloat pridefully.

“You know,” Hizashi says, his voice a mix of horror and appreciation, “it’s really weird to see you use such underhanded tactics — how are you a Gryffindor again?”

“How are you a Slytherin?” Nemuri counters, and Hizashi smirks.

“Touché.” He looks back toward the Hufflepuff table, where Tensei’s already loudly greeting everyone in sight, and sighs. “I’m not going to spy for you.”

“Of course not.”

“I’m really just going there for Shouta,” Hizashi continues.

Nemuri grins and wiggles her eyebrows at him, chortling when Hizashi sends her a glare back. “Sure, you are,” she says, patting his arm gently. “Sure, you are. But…”

“But if I hear something about Takeyama or their team, I’ll let you know,” Hizashi finishes, rolling his eyes. “And you owe me one.”

“One date for you and Shouta-kun coming up, sir, yes sir!” she replies, if only to see Hizashi splutter again.

It’s always fun to watch Hizashi’s reactions whenever somebody mentions his crush.

Before Hizashi gets a chance to reply, she shoves him toward the Hufflepuff table. The glare she gets back is utterly unjustified, in her opinion, and she feels perfectly at ease ignoring him to strike up a conversation with Shinji about team tactics they should definitely practice before the next match.

She’s not really engaged in it, though. Her eyes keep drifting back toward the Hufflepuff table, and more precisely to Takeyama.

She’s still laughing, and Nemuri stabs at her food a little harder.

“You know,” Shinji tells her, “if you glare at her any harder, Yuu might probably spontaneously combust.”

“ _Good.”_ Nemuri hisses, and then Shinji’s words register. “Wait, you know her?”

Shinji just stares at her, unimpressed. “We’re in the same year, Nemuri. In the same class half the time. Of course, I know her.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” She eyes him with sudden interest — maybe she can do some spying of her own, despite not being anywhere near Takeyama.

She offers Shinji her brightest smile as she leans toward him — he blushes and averts his eyes. _Good._

“Say, Shinji, what can you tell me about Takeyama?”

* * *

Tensei tells her everything he learned from his lunch at the Hufflepuff table during their DADA class — this teacher isn’t quite as useless as the one they’d had last year, but he also doesn’t really care what his students do during his class as long as they hand in their homework on time, learn the spells they’re supposed to be learning, and answer his questions whenever he has some.

It required a lot of self-study, but at least this teacher isn’t afraid of his own shadow.

Tensei didn’t learn much, sadly. He definitely learned nothing about Quidditch.

Also, he’s realized that Nemuri tricked him, and he’s peeved about it.

“I’m telling you this because I believe it might become useful, and it wouldn’t do any good for me not to share what I know,” Tensei tells her, “but I don’t approve of your methods.”

He sends her a disappointed look, and Nemuri can feel herself wilt — Tensei’s disappointment is _the worst._  She’s convinced it’s deadlier than the actual Killing Curse, and she _knows_ Shouta and Hizashi agree with her.

According to Tensei and what he could glean, Takeyama is friendly and loud, but she’s also kind of brash.

It coincides well with what Shinji told her earlier — that Takeyama rarely hesitated before helping others, but that she’d sometimes be a little _too eager_ in taking the credit.

(So what if Shinji had sounded fond even in his critics and told her he thought that Takeyama was nice? Clearly, he was deluded.)

“But none of this helps me.” She moans and drops her head on her crossed arms.

“You’ll figure it out,” Tensei says, patting her on the back.

“Stop laughing at me. I can feel you laughing at me.”

“I would never,” Tensei swears, and okay, somehow Nemuri managed to forget _again_ how much of a little shit her friend can be.

She lifts her head and glares at him, but before she can reply, the teacher comes to inspect their work — or lack thereof — and they’re both forced to table this in order to demonstrate _Protego_.

“ _This isn’t over,_ ” she says in a hiss as they leave their seats.

Tensei nods like he doesn’t believe her, and Nemuri starts going through her list of spells for the most embarrassingly painful hexes she knows.

Tensei’s shield charm better be perfect if he wants to escape this class unscathed.

* * *

In the end, however, Nemuri doesn’t really have another encounter with Takeyama until the next Quidditch match.

Gryffindor isn’t playing Hufflepuff — that’s in another two months, give or take a few days — but they’re playing Slytherin.

Nemuri hates playing Slytherin as much as she loves it — the Slytherin team is ruthless, which always means she can give her best game, but the players are also huge cheaters, and they’re not afraid to take a couple of penalties if it means costing the other team a player or two, which is incredibly frustrating.

Even so, right now, Nemuri’s rather looking forward to this match.

It’s been three weeks since Hufflepuff won against Ravenclaw and that fateful party, and Takeyama hasn’t talked to her since — not even one little barb. Takeyama has barely even looked her way, or so it seems.

It drove her mad, at first, but now, Nemuri is over it.

She is, really. Just ask anyone.

So what if Takeyama thinks she’s too good to pay attention to Nemuri? So what? It will only make it easier for Nemuri to rise up and crush her during their match — not that Nemuri needs any such help, of course.

But this lack of attention is what makes it so surprising to find Takeyama waiting in front of the locker rooms right before the match is set to start.

Takeyama is wearing Hufflepuff colors — not intent on supporting either of the competing teams, then — and a wide grin that Nemuri absolutely doesn’t trust.

“What are you doing here?” Nemuri asks, crossing her arms and glaring. The rest of the team is already inside and changing — Nemuri is the last one to get there because she’d gotten caught up in a last minute talk with her Head of House.

Takeyama shrugs. She looks a little awkward, her fingers playing with the hem of her sleeves. “I just wanted to wish you luck for your game, I guess.”

Nemuri blinks, taken aback. Something inside her chest threatens to rise, and she swallows rapidly. “Oh… I — really?”

Something flashes in Takeyama’s eyes, to fast for Nemuri to fully grasp. Takeyama looks… embarrassed, maybe?

Nemuri doesn’t get much longer to consider it, because Takeyama opens her mouth again. Only this time, her message isn’t so kind.

“Yup!” Takeyama says cheerfully. “I mean, an old lady like you probably needs all the luck she can get — wouldn’t want you to fall off your broom, now, would we?”

Nemuri grits her teeth so hard they creak, but she smiles back sunnily anyway. “One would think _you’d_ need all the luck you can get — do you even know how to hold your broom properly, or do you still need lessons for that?”

Before Takeyama can retort, Nemuri pushes past her and into the locker room, slamming the door shut behind her with a wordless scream.

She’s still mad enough when she comes out of the room that half the team gives her a wide berth — cowards, the lot of them. How they ever were Sorted into Gryffindor is honestly a mystery for the ages.

“Takeyama?” Tensei asks after he takes a look at her.

Nemuri scowls. “I don’t want to talk about it. That — that _cow!"_

Somebody stifles a chuckle behind her, and Nemuri glares at them so hard that they yelp and jump about half a foot in the air.

Tensei sighs. “She’s not worth your time — don’t listen to her. You’re the better Seeker, remember, and we’re going to beat those Hufflepuffs, and the Slytherin, and get the Cup.”

“Crush them.” Nemuri corrects, but she smiles — as always, Tensei always knows how to make her feel better.

She takes a deep breath, and feels her frazzled nerves calm a little — and not a moment too soon, too, because Hizashi’s magically enhanced voice starts yelling out player introductions.

Nemuri almost expects the flying to calm her, but one look toward the stands, where Takeyama’s pale hair stands out in the crowd, has the opposite effect. She tightens her hold on her broom so much that she hears the wood creak, and she forces herself to ease up a little as she glares back toward the stands.

She’s so focused on Takeyama that she almost misses the start of the match. Hizashi’s shout that the Quaffle is now in play startles her badly enough that she almost loses her grip — something she hides in a completely unnecessary barrel roll, but she’ll be damned before she gives any substance to Takeyama’s accusations.

In the end, the match is over after less than ten minutes, when Nemuri catches the Snitch after a hundred feet dive she’d never have managed to pull off if she hadn’t been still so angry.

It looks like her being mad at Takeyama isn’t so bad, after all.

Even better, when Nemuri looks into the stands, Takeyama looks pale as a ghost. It only makes her grin harder, and she takes an extra lap around the Pitch to show off her victory.

* * *

Nemuri spends the entirety of the Hufflepuff versus Slytherin match watching Takeyama fly.

There’s something oddly… graceful about it, something almost beautiful. It’s a little like the air is bending to Takeyama’s will, and even if Nemuri is too far away to really see her face, Takeyama seems… happy. She looks free, and it’s visible on every line of her body.

It makes Nemuri wonder… Does she look like this in the air too? Does she look this free when she flies too?

Tensei snorts when she asks him. “Nemuri,” he states disbelievingly, “when you fly, you look like you’re about to murder somebody.”

Nemuri frowns. “I — really?”

Tensei nods. “Really.”

“Huh. I hadn’t noticed.”

“It’s fine.” Tensei shrugs. “Honestly, it just shows that you’re focused, and that’s what makes you such a great Seeker.”

Nemuri can feel herself blush and she grins to hide it. “Aww, thanks, Tensei. You’re too sweet!”

She idly starts to consider who she could try to set him up with as a thank you present — Tensei does need to unwind a little — but her eyes wander back to Takeyama.

The girl really flies well — objectively, Nemuri is still better, but once Takeyama gains a little bit more experience… All bets will be off.

In theory, Nemuri doesn’t mind it — in fact, she even quite likes it. The previous Hufflepuff Seeker hadn’t been bad, but Quidditch clearly hadn’t been a passion for her the way it is for Nemuri, and it had shown in her game.

Takeyama has a lot of potential. She could become a great Seeker — if she can stop mowing down her own team as she chases after the Snitch, that is.

Hufflepuff wins again nonetheless, but Takeyama falls for the Slytherin Seeker’s traps twice, and almost crashes on both occasions. Nemuri winces every time, and for some reason, she exhales a small sigh of relief when Takeyama escapes unscathed.

Akaguro — the Slytherin Seeker — almost makes her miss Todoroki. Nemuri had only played against the previous Slytherin Seeker once, when she’d had to replace Yagi at the last minute, but while Todoroki had been brutal to fly against, he also had never used as many underhanded tactics as Akaguro does.

The match dragged on for quite a while, and Nemuri is famished, but she still lingers a little before she follows the rest of her House out of the stands.

She waits until Takeyama has left the Pitch to leave.

* * *

Between homework, assignments, starting to prepare for their OWLs and Quidditch, Nemuri almost doesn’t see the time pass until the next match.

Until it’s time for the Gryffindor team to face the Hufflepuffs.

So far, the Hufflepuffs are favored to win the Cup, but the Gryffindors are close seconds. They have enough of an advance from their last match that they might even be able to get to the finals and win the Cup even if they lose this match, especially if they also win against Ravenclaw in February, but Nemuri doesn’t intend to lose.

This is the match she’s been preparing for for months now, and there’s no way she’s going to lose it. They’re going to crush the Hufflepuffs, and they’re going to do it in style.

The last match against Slytherin only strengthened her conviction — Takeyama is good, yes, but she’s not that good. Nemuri can beat her — she _will_ beat her.

This time, Takeyama doesn’t try to meet her before the match. She does, however, wave at Nemuri once they’re on the Pitch.

“Ready to get your ass kicked, old lady?” Takeyama shouts, and Nemuri growls.

Beside her, Tensei chuckles. “Well, I can see why you hate her now.”

Somehow, it doesn’t sound like ‘hate’ is really what he means, but Nemuri barely has time to scowl before the match kickstarts.

Nemuri swears as she dives to avoid a Bludger, and when she looks up, Tensei is on the other side of the field.

Takeyama, however, isn’t. She’s hovering a few feet above Nemuri, broom aimed to fly slow circles around the Pitch.

As far as strategies go, it’s not a terrible one — it is, in fact, what Nemuri always does when a match starts.

“Copying me now, are you?” she shouts. “And here I thought such ‘old’ tricks would be beneath you.”

At first, Nemuri thinks Takeyama didn’t hear her, but then Takeyama shouts back, laughing, “Only if I can’t make them better!”

She dives so suddenly and smoothly that Nemuri can only stare after her, blankly, for half a second until her brain kicks into gear again.

In the stands, Hizashi is yelling, “ _AND TAKEYAMA ISSUES A CHALLENGE TO KAYAMA — COULD IT BE THAT HUFFLEPUFF’S SEEKER HAS ALREADY SPOTTED THE SNITCH AND IS LEAVING KAYAMA BEHIND?_ ”

Cursing, Nemuri urges her broom to go faster — it’s not enough against Takeyama’s younger model, but Nemuri didn’t choose her broom only for its speed.

She also chose it for its maneuverability, and where Takeyama loses precious seconds on an almost collision with Tensei, Nemuri flies right on by without slowing down.

Not that it matters, in the end, because it was a feint — the Snitch isn’t there. It never was.

Takeyama’s flying caused plenty of chaos though, and Hufflepuff takes advantage of it to score the first goal.

Nemuri growls and flies up again, making sure to keep one eye on the Pitch and one eye on Takeyama. She’s not going to fall for this a second time.

She almost does, though, about fifty minutes later. The game is at a standstill — for every goal that the Hufflepuffs Chasers get in, the Gryffindors retaliate with a goal of their own — and the Snitch has remained elusive.

Nemuri is itching for some actual action when Takeyama _zooms_ past her, head bent over her broom handle and not even sparing a look at Nemuri.

She almost falls for it — probably would have, actually, if her eyes hadn’t landed on the _actual_ Snitch right then. It’s hovering about the stands, right above where Hizashi is yelling about Takeyama diving toward the ground and Tensei attempting a risky pass to Shinji.

She almost misses it because Hizashi’s charmed microphone — a gag gift that she regrets ever participating on — sparkles enough on its own. It’s probably why Takeyama didn’t spot the Snitch next to it.

Nemuri feels herself grin as her vision narrows to that little golden ball. This is it — the victory she needs. She has to take it now, while Takeyama is still distracted from her failed attempt at a feint.

She angles her broom right, and pushes it as fast as it will go. She’s closer to the stands than Takeyama is, but Takeyama’s broom is still faster. The other girl might still catch up if Nemuri gives her even half a chance to, and there is no way she is letting that pumped up _brat_ steal this victory from her.

Hizashi’s comments start off as enthusiastic when he sees her ceasing to fly aimlessly — clearly, she’s not the only one desperate for some action in this match — but turn shriller and shriller as he realizes Nemuri’s flying right at him.

He yelps and dives down for cover — dragging a grumpy Shouta down with him — but Nemuri’s hand still brushes against his hair right before her fingers close around the Snitch.

Less than five seconds later, Takeyama’s fingers close around hers and it’s Nemuri’s turn to yelp.

She tugs her hand back but overcompensates — luckily, she’s still only a few feet above the stands, and the fall barely hurts. Takeyama has, of course, let go of her hand, and is laughing at her as Nemuri gets back on her broom, scowling.

She shakes her hand and tries to ignore the way it still tingles where Takeyama touched her.

Beside them, Hizashi stands back up, rubbing his head as he picks up his mic. He stares up at her like she’s betrayed him. “What the fuck, Nemuri? You could have killed me!”

“ _Language, Mister Yamada!”_ Nedzu, the Headmaster snaps with the chilliest smile Nemuri’s ever seen — it’s not even directed at her and she’s already getting goosebumps.

“Sorry, sir,” Hizashi mumbles back before his glare focuses back on Nemuri.

Nemuri rolls her eyes inwardly as she smiles at her friend sheepishly — it’s not like Hizashi had _really_ been in danger.

Besides, a little broom crash is nothing the Madam Shuzenji can’t fix.

“Sorry?” she says, before brandishing her still clenched fist forward and opening it slowly, revealing curved golden wings barely fluttering. “But look, I caught the Snitch!”

Hizashi lights up. His following shout of, _“AND NEMURI KAYAMA CATCHES THE SNITCH IN A RECKLESS DIVE TOWARD YOUR FAVORITE COMMENTATOR!! THIS IS A VICTORY FOR GRYFFINDOR, 220-60!”_ nearly makes her go deaf.

She obligingly goes to take a lap of the field, partly to show off the Snitch proudly, partly to avoid Hizashi screaming in her ears again.

The crowd cheers loudly as she flies — her House is always the loudest of them all — and Nemuri can’t stop grinning as her teammates congratulate her for that catch.

“Not bad,” Takeyama says as they finally dismount their brooms. Both of them are the last to do so, and Takeyama’s grinning.

It’s making Nemuri want to punch her. In the face. Nothing good has ever come of Takeyama grinning.

They only have a few moments before their teams swarm them, but Nemuri still hears Takeyama’s next sentence, which, of course, proves her right.

“For, you know, an old lady.”

It’s lucky her team is already there, hugging her. It makes it easier for them to restrain her when she tries to go for Takeyama’s throat.

(In the commotion, she doesn’t hear Shinji talking to Takeyama, laughing as he pats her shoulder and says, “Wow, you really are _awful_ at this.”)

* * *

The Gryffindor party that night is honestly kind of a blur. She remembers somebody daring her to do shots with them — Sekijiro, maybe? — and then not much else. Luckily, the next day is a Sunday, because when Nemuri wakes up, all she wants to do is go back to sleep.

Sadly, it is already lunchtime and she is craving something hot and greasy to calm down her stomach.

Tensei, who somehow never got a hangover in his life, greets her at the bottom of the stairs with a wide grin.

“Good morning, Nemuri! I’m glad to see you up — I was about to send someone to wake you if you didn’t come down.” His grin softens, no longer as bright though still as teasing. “Are you alright?”

Nemuri groans and rubs her temples. “I’m fine,” she says, “but please don’t speak so loudly.”

Tensei laughs softly. “Are you sure you’re ready for the Great Hall then?”

Nemuri groans again — right now, facing down the Great Hall and its hundred of students sounds like torture.

“Ugh, do I _have to?_ ”

“Well, Hizashi will be there, and he’ll probably have something that can cure you of that headache.”

The thought of one of Hizashi’s special hangover potions almost makes her want to cry with relief — Hizashi refuses to part with his modified recipe, but he always has a few vials handy after parties.

He always saves one for Nemuri, as part of his ongoing ‘stop Nemuri from telling Shouta I like him’ campaign. Nemuri’s honestly not sure what she’d do if Hizashi ever stopped supplying her with those hangover potions. Cry, probably — or maybe just kill somebody.

That is a problem for another time, though. Today, the prospect of an instant cure for her pounding headache and queasy stomach is more than enough to get her to brave the moving stairs that lead them to the Great Hall — even if her stomach doesn’t entirely agree with her on that part.

Hizashi is at his table for once today, though he, as usual, sends longing looks toward the Hufflepuff table, where Shouta is glaringly absent, whenever he thinks nobody’s looking.

Nemuri pushes her way through and sits across from him, almost dislodging two students who send her dark glares as Tensei tentatively apologizes for her.

Nemuri only glares back until they grumble and go back to their food, and then she turns her attention to Hizashi.

“Please tell me you have —”

Hizashi smiles as he offers her a vial. “Some hangover potion?” He laughs, a booming sound that makes her grit her teeth. “Of course. Here.”

Nemuri downs it in two swallows and then steals Hizashi’s glass of pumpkin juice to rinse the horrid taste out of her mouth. She can already feel it kicking in, though, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

“Thank Merlin, this feels so much better.”

“I also answer to Hizashi, but you’re welcome,” Hizashi quips.

Nemuri rolls her eyes at him. “That was terrible, even by your standards.”

Hizashi pouts. “Is that why you came here? To abuse me? And after I so nicely helped you out, too.” He turns his eyes to Tensei, who snorts.

“Don’t drag me into this, you two,” he says. “I only came here to make sure Nemuri didn’t trip and die.”

“ _Hey!"_  Nemuri snaps, her cheeks flushing red.

Hizashi sends her a contemplating look. “You did look worse than usual earlier, Nemuri. What happened?”

Nemuri scowls. “I don’t remember.”

“She answered Sekijiro’s challenge and did shots with him,” Tensei replies dryly.

Well, at least it looks like her memory isn’t entirely shot to hell — pun unintended.

“With _Kan?_!” Hizashi chokes. “Are you insane? Even I know not to drink with that guy.”

Nemuri scowls as she crosses her arms. “That’s because you’re weak. Which I am not — I am perfectly able to handle a drinking contest with Sekijiro.”

“What she means is that he was the only one who’d also listen to her rant about Takeyama,” Tensei fake-whispers.

Hizashi stares at Nemuri disbelievingly. “Rant about — Nemuri! You won, what is there even to rant about?”

“Don’t get her started —” Tensei says alarmedly, just as Nemuri stabs her fork into the table violently.

“ _So glad you asked_ ,” she says in a hiss, with a sunny grin that bares her teeth.

Hizashi looks like he regrets every decision he’s ever made, but Nemuri takes great pleasure in informing him of all the ways Takeyama grates on her nerves, and why the younger Seeker is such a terrible person that Nemuri _has_ to hate her.

“... Right,” Hizashi states once she’s done. Tensei sends him a commiserating look.

Mercifully for them, Nemuri realizes then that she hasn’t actually eaten yet, and judging by the way everyone seems to be vacating the Hall, lunch is about to end. Scarfing down the greasiest, heaviest food she can get her hands on does still take precedence over ranting about Takeyama — but only just.

* * *

Shouta only emerges from the Hufflepuff Common Room for dinner. They all pile up at his House table too, and Nemuri watches as he picks at his food.

“Aren’t you hungry? You weren’t there at lunch.”

Shouta shrugs, and from the corner of her eye, Nemuri can see Hizashi’s cheeks flush pink as he suddenly — and very loudly — asks Tensei for his opinion on the potatoes.

“Hizashi brought me some sandwiches,” Shouta mumbles. “I’m fine.” His cheeks are also pink, though it is kind of hard to tell when he buries his head in his scarf like this.

“Oh, _Hizashi_ did, didn’t he?”

Shouta glares at her, and yup, he’s definitely blushing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nemuri smirks. “Oh, nothing. Just, you know, a friend doing friendly things, like bringing you food when you won’t leave your bed...”

“He is a good friend,” Shouta replies, his dark eyes narrowing.

“Not saying he isn’t.” Nemuri keeps smirking. “Just that if I stayed in bed, he wouldn’t bring _me_ food.”

Shouta stares at her blankly, and Nemuri bites back a sigh. “Fine, whatever.” She nudges him in the shoulder. “Can you pass me the mushrooms? I think I should try to eat _some_ vegetables today.” She winks. “Keep my figure, you know?”

Shouta stares blankly into the greasy mushroom dish as he hands it to her. “Are mushrooms even vegetables?” Nemuri hears him mutter.

She gasps and flails like he’s cursed her in the back. “You take that _back_ — mushrooms grow from the ground, they’re vegetables!”

Hizashi, bless him, loudly agrees with her and drowns out Tensei’s half-hearted protests.

Shouta still doesn’t appear convinced, and his confusion, added to Hizashi and Tensei’s sort of fight over _mushrooms,_ makes the scene more hilarious than it probably is.

Nemuri laughs so hard that she almost manages to forget that Takeyama keeps staring her way.

And then she chokes on some chicken bones, and she does forget about Takeyama entirely.

Well, at least for a little while.

* * *

After all the hype Nemuri had built up around their match against Hufflepuff, facing Ravenclaw feels like a breeze.

She does kind of regret her blase approach when Thirteen — that Ravenclaw Seeker who only answers by their jersey number for some reason, and has for as long as Nemuri has known them — almost snatches the Snitch right in front of her less than twenty minutes into the match.

The Ravenclaw team is good, that’s for sure. Nemuri shouldn’t have made light of that. They’re the best strategists in all of Hogwarts — Quidditch-wise, anyway — and while they do have some trouble putting those strategies in action fifty percent of the time, when they do manage to, their play can be quite devastating.

Luckily, though, most of them aren’t the best fliers — their Chaser team, for example, is the worst in the school when it comes to accuracy. That doesn’t make them bad, per se, but it does make it very easy for Gryffindor to take the lead.

Thirteen is better than her though, and Nemuri isn’t at her best. She hasn’t been since the game started, as proved by that near miss earlier on, and while she manages to gather her bearings, it is clear that Thirteen is simply more motivated today.

The match drags on, Nemuri doing more to keep Thirteen from the Snitch than she does to catch it herself — it isn’t hard to see which strategy her team is going with. If they put in enough goals, who catches the Snitch won’t matter, after all.

It’s still a close thing — Tensei puts in a last goal mere moments before Thirteen’s fingers close around the Golden Snitch, putting Gryffindor in the lead by ten measly points.

The crowd still goes wild, of course, and Nemuri is breathless from such a long match when Thirteen congratulates them on their victory.

“It was a tough game!” Thirteen says, grinning. “Shame we came so close only to lose — but we’ll get you next year!”

Nemuri laughs as she grins back. “You can try!”

She’s disappointed in herself, though. This is by far her worst play in _years_ — Nemuri doesn’t understand what came over her.

Tensei corners her outside the locker rooms, looking concerned. “Are you alright? That wasn’t —”

“Up to my usual awesome standards?” Nemuri quips half-heartedly. She sighs. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s fine,” Tensei replies, though he still looks slightly worried. “We won in the end — and I trust you’ll do better next time, won’t you?”

Nemuri scoffs. “Duh! Of course, I’ll do better!”

Tensei pulls her into a hug. “Great — now come on, it’s lunchtime and I’m famished.”

“Tensei, you’re _always_ famished.” Nemuri snorts, a small smirk playing on her lips.

Tensei shrugs playfully as they start walking. “What can I say? I’m a growing boy.”

“Merlin, I hope not,” Nemuri mutters. She’s long since resigned herself to the fact that her male friends will tower over her — and she’s one of the tallest girls in their year — but that doesn’t mean she wants Tensei to get _even taller._

“What was that?” Tensei smirks. “I’m sorry, you’re too far away, I couldn’t hear you.”

Nemuri rolls her eyes at him as she swats him on the arm. “You _ass!"_

But it does make her laugh, and she feels a little better about herself. Apparently, that was Tensei’s only goal, because his smirk turns into a sappily proud grin.

Nemuri swats his arm again, but she follows him to the Great Hall without further protest.

* * *

There are three weeks between the Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw match and the Ravenclaw versus Slytherin match. With the way schoolwork is picking up — _again_ — Nemuri has never been gladder to not be playing Quidditch.

There are only two matches left after that one to determine the rankings for the Cup — one between the two best teams to determine first and second place, and another between the other two teams to determine third and fourth place.

Those matches are already determined, really — Gryffindor won all their matches and Hufflepuff won two, so they’ll be doing a rematch in May. Ravenclaw and Slytherin will also be having two matches, with that second one happening shortly before the first.

This leaves a slightly longer breaks for the teams to prepare for their matches, which Nemuri really appreciates. She already feels like she’s dying, she can’t imagine what it would feel like if she had to put in even more Quidditch hours.

Nemuri almost doesn’t go to the Ravenclaw versus Slytherin match because of this — but in the end, the weather is too nice not to, and it’s _Quidditch._

She ends up sitting next to Tensei again — Hizashi is obviously sitting in the commentator’s booth again, and as has been the case more and more often lately, he has dragged Shouta there with him.

Her eyes drift over the stands, and she scowls as she catches sight of familiar pale white hair.

“What’s _she_ doing here?” she mutters — loud enough, though, that apparently Tensei picks up on it.

His eyes follow hers, and he groans when he spots Takemaya. “Come on, Nemuri, just let it rest — she hasn’t talked to you in weeks. She’s probably just here to enjoy the match and relax before your next match — just like we are.”

Nemuri narrows her eyes. “Maybe that’s just what she wants you to think.”

“Right, because now your ‘nemesis’ is also an evil mastermind.”

Nemuri tilts her head as she ruminates the thought. “Do you think they’d give me points for bringing her down if she turns out to be some kind of evil Dark Lord — Lady? Dark Lady? Are those even a thing?”

Tensei lets out a long-suffering sigh, looking longingly to the booth where Hizashi and Shouta are. “You know what, they just might — maybe if Takeyama turns out to be evil, you can win us the House Cup by defeating her. And Dark Lady, I think?”

Tensei blinks and swears. “Wait, no, this isn’t me agreeing with you. Takeyama isn’t _evil_ or some kind of, of _Dark Lady!_ Nemuri, come on!”

Nemuri cackles. She doesn’t _actually_ believe that Takeyama is Dark Lady levels of evil — not yet, at least.

“You’re wrong, by the way,” she says when Tensei finally stops trying to hit her in retribution — something that is always hilarious, because even after five years as her friend, Tensei still has trouble with ‘hitting a girl’.

“Wrong about what?” Tensei asks, frowning.

“Takeyama hasn’t not talked to me in weeks — or well, she has, but not really.” Nemuri frowns, suddenly lost as she tries to retrace that sentence in her head. She would’ve sworn it made perfect sense when she’d thought it, but out loud it was just a mess.

Tensei just blinks at her. “Right…”

“Don’t mock me.” Nemuri scowls. “I obviously meant that she hasn’t talked to me, but she’s been glaring at me. I just know it — everywhere I went, I would always see her smug little face, taunting me…” She grits her teeth and Tensei sweatdrops.

“Right,” he repeats dryly, “ _obviously._ ”

Tensei is saved from her answer by the match, which starts at last. They’re both rooting for Ravenclaw, of course. Slytherin as a House may not be that bad — Hizashi is a Slytherin, and he’s their best friend — but the Slytherin Quidditch team is a mess and a half that Nemuri really, really hopes gets trashed today.

Maybe next year they’ll actually learn to stop taking bribes when it comes accepting players and finally get some real talent. Nemuri isn’t holding out hope, though.

The game is brutal — Hizashi seems to shout out as many fouls and penalties as he does actual goals, if not more. The two Seekers are pretty much evenly matched too — Thirteen is slimmer and they go faster, but Akaguro has the strength they lack, and he’s really not afraid of pulling all the dirty tricks he can to make sure his opponent doesn’t catch the Snitch.

It’s the perfect distraction from the crushing pile of homework that awaits them and the dread of the upcoming OWLs, and Nemuri finds herself screaming along with the crowd whenever a foul is called — and sometimes, even when it’s not.

It is however very lucky that the weather is so nice, because the match ends up going well over the three hours line, which was the longest Hogwarts game Nemuri had ever watched before this one. A lot of the students leave then too, citing homework or hunger or some other reasons — weaklings, the lot of them.

The players are starting to lag too, however, and Nemuri predicts that the match won’t last much longer. The teachers will probably have to call it if it lasts too long, and the teams don’t have enough reserve players to play at being pros and substitute to keep the match going.

And maybe it’s a stroke of luck, because just then, Nemuri spots a flash of gold in the far-off end of the Pitch, hovering around the Slytherins’ central hoop. She bites back a scream and digs her nails into Tensei’s arm in excitement, flailing as she points it out to him.

Further, in the Hufflepuff stands, Takeyama has the same reaction, though hers is far louder.

It’s impossible to say if the Seekers would have noticed the Snitch if Hizashi hadn’t picked up on Nemuri and Takeyama’s excited flailing — come to think of it, it’s probably why he pointed it out in the first place.

Thirteen and Akaguro rush toward it so quickly Nemuri almost expects after-images to be left behind them.

The race is close, especially since the Snitch doesn’t stay in place, but in the end, Thirteen had been closer to the Snitch in the first place. Close enough that they’d gotten a headstart — small, but significant.

Added to their better maneuverability which had seen them dodge a last-minute Bludger that Akaguro had taken to the arm, it made sense for them to win and end the game, earning Ravenclaw a victory at last while Akaguro raged.

“Well, that was a nice match,” Tensei notes as they start to vacate the stands.

Nemuri hums in agreement. Her mind wanders back to her homework and she winces. “Shame it didn’t last longer, though.”

Tensei laughs at her.

“What?” Nemuri asks, frowning.

Tensei stays silent, miming sewing his lips close.

“Very mature, Tensei, very mature.” Nemuri glares at him. “Come on,” she asks in a whine, “what is it?”

But try as she might, Tensei refuses to tell her what he found so funny.

She does get it, eventually. Hours later, when the clock strikes 11 pm and Nemuri realizes that she still has half a Potions essay to finish for the next day.

Well, at least she’s not the only one in that situation — the Common Room is unusually full of cursing students for a Sunday evening.

It cheers her up to think that some of them might even be worse off than her.

* * *

Takeyama doesn’t try to challenge her or talk to her about their upcoming match. She doesn’t approach Nemuri, not even once — not even when Nemuri expects it.

It’s driving her mad.

“I don’t get it,” she rants at her friends. They’re camped out at the Gryffindor table again today — less chances of somebody listening in that way.

“Two months ago it was all, ‘you’re too old to play, I’ll beat you’, and now that _I_ beat her, suddenly nobody’s there anymore? It just doesn’t make sense!”

She lets out a mangled, wordless scream and swipes her arm through the air, fork still in hand.

Shouta, who’s had to duck with a slight uncharacteristic yelp, stares at her unblinkingly until she apologizes.

“Be careful,” Tensei adds with a smirk he’s unsuccessful at hiding in his food, “or she’ll start trying to convince you Takeyama’s actually a Dark Lady in disguise.”

Shouta’s deadpan look intensifies while Hizashi’s eyes flicker between Tensei and Nemuri, as though waiting for one of them to call the joke. When neither of them does, he gapes.

“ _What?!_ ” His voice comes out as shrill and persistent, and Nemuri winces.

“Don’t listen to him,” she hastens to say. “I would never say anything of the sort. Of course not.”

“Of course not,” Shouta repeats in his driest tone.

Nemuri grins brightly. “See?”

Shouta doesn’t appear convinced. Beside him, Hizashi finally stops gaping. “A _Dark Lady_ — I don’t… What?”

Tensei shakes his head at him, patting him on the arm. “It’s Nemuri — sometimes it’s better not to ask.”

Shouta nods along like it’s the truest thing in the world, and Nemuri would protest, she really would, except that this is really not the hill she wants to die on.

“ _Anyway,"_  she starts, raising her voice so they focus back on her, “she’s planning something.”

“Yes,” Shouta replies. “Your next match.”

Hizashi chokes on his laughter as Nemuri glares at them both. Shouta just arches back an eyebrow, before sighing and slapping Hizashi on the back until he stops coughing.

“He’s not wrong, you know,” Tensei adds, hiding his own chuckling with a cough when Nemuri turns her glare on him.

“Very funny, guys — but no, I mean she’s planning something else. Something that has to do with _me."_

She’s met with three dubious gazes, and she sighs. “Look, she hasn’t really talked to me or said anything since, you know…”

“Since you tried to strangle her on the Quidditch Pitch,” Shouta supplies unhelpfully.

Nemuri clears her throat, her cheeks flushing red. “Right, since that time. I do maintain I was entirely justified, too. Anyway, that’s not what this is about. She’s planning something, she has to be — she keeps staring at me, and she always has that, that _smug grin_ on her lips like she’s so much better than me, and —”

Tensei raises his hand, and Nemuri stops in her tracks.

“What the —? Lower your hand, Tensei, this isn’t class!” she hisses as Hizashi cracks up — even Shouta lets out a chuckle that he buries in his scarf while also rolling his eyes.

“Sorry,” Tensei says with a shit-eating grin that implies he’s not sorry at all. “It’s just that well, maybe _this_ is her plan? Distracting you with trying to figure out what she’s planning?”

“Ooh, _devious,_ ” Hizashi says cheerfully. “I like it.”

Nemuri’s eye widen. She clasps her hand over Tensei’s arm so hard he winces. “That must be it! Tensei, you’re a genius!”

She grabs some bread and chicken, and in seconds has assembled two pretty tasty-looking sandwiches. She wraps the first in a napkin and stuffs it in her pocket, and she takes a huge bite of the second as she stands up.

“What are you doing?” Tensei asks in alarm.

Nemuri, for once taller than him now that Tensei is sitting, pats him on the head. “I’m going to go train — can’t let that, that _pretender_ win!”

Of course, since her mouth is half full, what comes out is much less legible than that, and Nemuri swallows while rolling her eyes, before repeating what she’d just said.

She doesn’t wait for an answer before leaving the Hall — today’s a Saturday, and Nemuri knows for a fact that nobody’s reserved the Pitch for training yet. She can practice a few feints and dives there.

(“That’s totally not it, right?” Shouta asks Tensei once Nemuri’s gone.

Tensei chuckles weakly, still staring at where Nemuri disappeared in disbelief. “Er, no, not really? I mean, it could be? Maybe? But I don’t think so. She’s in _your_ House, Shouta, you probably know her better than we do — what do you think is going on?”

Shouta stays quiet for a few moments, sipping at his half-full glass. “I —” He hesitates and finishes his glass. “Whatever is going on, it’s probably not what Nemuri thinks.”

Hizashi snorts. “When is it ever?”

He looks kind of disappointed, though — it’s almost like he’d been hoping for Takeyama to indeed be that devious.)

* * *

The next time Nemuri has the ‘pleasure’ to talk to Takeyama is actually the morning of the match, outside the locker rooms. It’s oddly reminiscent of some of their previous interactions, but this time, Nemuri is the one cornering Takeyama, and not the other way around.

Takeyama’s teammates actually push her out the door when they spot Nemuri, chuckling to themselves as Nemuri narrows her eyes at them.

Takeyama doesn’t appear to be expecting her, because one moment she’s complaining at her teammates, who only laugh back at her, and the next she’s freezing as she sees Nemuri.

Takeyama tries to smile and only half succeeds. That smile looks kind of awkward on her face — lopsided and trembling a little. She runs a hand through her hair and chuckles sheepishly.

“Kayama, hi. What are you doing here?” She smirks, and as infuriating as it is, it looks much more natural on her. “Here to wish me luck? We won’t need it, you know.”

Nemuri stares back at her pointedly. “You do remember who won our last match, don’t you?”

Takeyama shrugs. “That was last time — this match will be different, you’ll see.”

Nemuri grins dangerously. “Oh, I’m sure,” she purrs.

She sees Takeyama swallow, her eyes going wide — good. It looks like the girl can learn, after all.

But Takeyama gets her bearings back quickly. “What are you here for then, Kayama, if not to wish me luck?”

Nemuri shakes her head, grinning smugly. “Oh, I’m here to tell you that I figured out your little game.”

“My… little game?” A flash of panic flashes across Takeyama’s face, and Nemuri feels her grin widen.

“Don’t play coy with me.” Nemuri scoffs. “I know that you were planning in distracting me so I wouldn’t prepare for this match. I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to work — I’m onto you.”

Takeyama blinks and gapes. “Oh. That,” she says after a while, chuckling awkwardly.

For some reason, Nemuri thinks she can spot a hint of relief in Takeyama’s eyes before that smugness she so despises comes back, and she scowls.

“Yes, that.”

Takeyama starts nodding. Her lips twitch. “Well, then color me impressed — I didn’t think you could ever figure out my… _game_ so _easily_. I guess your additional experience probably came in handy there, didn’t it?”

Nemuri splutters. “I’m sorry, my _what_ now?”

Takeyama grins, a hint of sharp teeth poking out between her parted lips. “You heard me.” She shrugs. “Let’s hope for you it’s as useful during the match as it’s been until now.”

There is something in her tone that places Nemuri off balance — something almost teasing. She falters and recovers by narrowing her eyes. “Right — let’s.”

She spins around and walks back to her own team without waiting for a reply.

She’s fuming though, and still feeling slightly out of balance — but she can’t pinpoint why, which only serves to annoy her more. _Additional experience my ass!_ she thinks uncharitably.

Shinji groans when he sees her enter, burying his face in his hands. “You went to see Takeyama, didn’t you?”

Nemuri glares back at him. “Maybe.”

“ _Why?"_  He moans.

Nemuri refuses to dignify that with an answer — mostly because she doesn’t know _why_ herself. Not that she’ll admit that.

Tensei laughs and throws an arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward the brooms. He stops laughing once there’s some distance with the rest of the team, and he turns to face her.

“No, but seriously, _why?_ I thought we’d agreed you should ignore her?” he whisper-shouts.

“No, _you_ agreed. I never said anything of the sort,” Nemuri replies petulantly. At Tensei’s pointed look, she rolls her eyes and pats him on the arm, before reaching around him for her broom.

She hefts it on her shoulder and says, “Don’t worry — I’ve got this under control.”

* * *

Nemuri doesn’t have anything under control.

Takeyama’s tactics this match seem to be the complete opposite of what she’d done during their previous match — instead of almost shadowing Nemuri, she wanders out on her own, circling the Pitch and zig-zagging around (and sometimes, _through)_  the other players.

It forces Nemuri to step up her game and do the same, because there is no way that she’s letting Takeyama take the lead here and risk the Hufflepuff stumbling upon the Snitch during one of her crazy schemes.

Nemuri doesn’t like this style of flying — it makes it harder to spot the Snitch. The flares of gold are already difficult to notice when one is standing still, but when in motion, they’re practically impossible to catch.

Unfortunately, this style seems to suit Takeyama better than what she’d tried to do during their previous match — something that Takeyama can’t help but take notice of, apparently.

If Nemuri has to hear another dig about her age in relation to ‘having trouble keeping up’ come out of Takeyama’s mouth, she’s liable to murder someone. Probably Takeyama, but she’s not ruling anyone out — she’s seen quite a few of the other players smile or laugh as they overheard Takeyama’s words. Even Tensei did it, that traitor.

Takeyama starts another pointless dive — this time, toward the bottom of the Ravenclaw stands — and after a beat, Nemuri follows. At the very least, she’s getting some good practice on her dives, which have always been her worst point.

As expected, they do not find the Snitch — something that Hizashi loudly, loudly comments over from his booth before he gives the scores again.

50-30 in Gryffindor’s favor.

It’s a lot and very little at the same time — the match has been going on for well over two hours now, and usually, the scores would be higher by that point. The only reason they aren’t is that Takeyama and Nemuri keep breaking the Chasers’ formations when they dash around the Pitch.

And a little despite herself, Nemuri finds that she’s having fun. Not with the chasing after Takeyama part, though she doesn’t hate it quite as much as she thought she would, but with the flying around part.

She’d used to do it. She remembers that now. During her first couple of years as a Seeker, she had played a lot like Takeyama plays now, actually — wild and careless. She kind of misses it, and she hadn’t even realized it.

Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that Takeyama’s method is sloppy. Of the two of them, Nemuri is still by far the better flier — even is Takeyama is more at ease in the air and has a newer and better broom.

And that’s enough, in the end, to grant her the victory she’d been seeking.

She grins as she catches the Snitch, its tiny wings tickling against her skin, and laughs breathlessly as Tensei flies over and pulls her into a ribs-breaking hug in midair that the rest of their team soon joins in.

 _“AND GRYFFINDOR WINS THE CUP!!”_ Hizashi yells from the stands, echoing with the screams in Nemuri’s ears. _“WHAT A GAME, PEOPLE  WHAT A GAME!!”_

From the corner of her eyes, she can see Takeyama getting pulled into her own group hug by a team that praises her for trying.

They stay in the air for a long time after the match ends. They take laps around the Pitch, as a team and as individual players, showing off for the crowd, and Nemuri can’t stop grinning.

This isn’t the first time Gryffindor has won the Quidditch Cup while she was part of it, but it’s definitely the sweetest, and beating Takeyama is a huge part of it.

When Nemuri finally dismounts her broom though, she’s exhausted. Her legs shake as she takes a few shaky steps — it gets better after that, even if her legs are a still a little stiff, but she’s not looking forward to the next couple of days.

Maybe she can get Madam Chuzenji to give her a potion or a salve for the aching when they get back to the school. Nemuri doesn’t usually go to her for this type of thing, since aching muscles after Quidditch are usually signs of a match well played, but she thinks this time might be bad enough to qualify for an exception.

Tensei, Merlin bless him, seems to notice her struggles, because he comes over and takes her broom from her. “Here, let me take that — we wouldn’t want you to trip and impale yourself on your own broom, now, would we? It would be a poor way to celebrate our victory.”

Nemuri almost sags in relief while Tensei chuckles at his own joke. She’s so tired that she can’t even find the energy to glare at Tensei for that remark.

Takeyama is waiting for them once they reach the locker rooms — well, Nemuri’s pretty sure Takeyama’s waiting for _her,_  not for Tensei.

Her friend takes one look at the two of them and sighs. He raises a questioning eyebrow at Nemuri, who shakes her head — she’ll be fine.

Tensei looks so relieved to be able to leave that Nemuri almost laughs at him. She watches him go for a while before turning her attention to Takeyama.

Takeyama is out of her uniform already, and her white hair is still damp from the shower. It makes her look… softer, and Nemuri’s heart gives an odd pang.

“What do you want?” Nemuri asks, suddenly acutely aware that she’s still in her sweaty Quidditch clothes — they’re form-fitting, yes, because that’s the way Nemuri likes all of her clothing, but right now the way they stick to her skin is anything but pleasant.

She crosses her arms, trying not to wince, and stares at Takeyama pointedly.

Nemuri’s not sure why she didn’t just ignore the younger girl. She’s not even sure why she’s still here, standing in this awkward silence.

Takeyama’s purple eyes flicker a little before they focus on Nemuri’s face. “Good game,” she says, before she licks her lips and falls silent.

“Yeah, it was.” Nemuri feels herself unwind a little. Her eyebrow rises higher the longer Takeyama stays silent. “Was that all you wanted to say?”

For an instant, Nemuri is sure Takeyama will say ‘yes’ — but then the girl shakes her head violently, sending white hair flying everywhere, as she blurts out, “No.”

Takeyama flushes violently, and Nemuri finds herself smiling — it’s almost nice, seeing Takeyama like this, less guarded and haughty as Nemuri’s grown used to.

“I wanted to say thank you,” Takeyama says hastily, eyes darting down to the hands she’s suddenly wringing.

Nemuri frowns, her smile falling a little. “Thank… you? Why? You lost.”

Takeyama smiles as she shrugs, running a hand through her hair sheepishly. “I know, but… I took your advice, and I got better — work with my team more, right?”

Nemuri blinks, lost for a moment before the confusion clears up — she had said that, hadn’t she? Or at least something close enough in meaning. Looking back on it, Takeyama had done better on teamwork during this match — she hadn’t interfered with their play as much as she’d used to, even if in the end, Nemuri had ended up doing that for her.

“Right,” Nemuri agrees, nodding slowly. _What is happening here?_

Takeyama smiles again. It turns sharp, though, and Nemuri almost breathes a sigh at the more familiar sight.

“And you won _this year,"_  Takeyama continues. “We won’t make it so easy on you next year — _I_ won’t be as easy to beat next year.”

Nemuri can’t help it; she snorts. “Sure — I’ll look forward to it.”

Surprisingly enough, she finds that she actually means it.

Takeyama seems to feel differently, though, because the awkward but easy atmosphere they had been sort of building turns weird again.

Takeyama’s eyes narrow defensively, the purple so dark it looks almost black. “I won’t be,” she repeats. She lightens up a little. “Your experience helped you here, maybe, but I’m still a better flier — plus, aren’t you getting a little too big to keep playing Seeker?”

Nemuri freezes, then bristles. “ _Big_?!”

Takeyama seems to realize she’s misjudged the situation because her eyes widen and she starts to say that she’d meant big as in tall, not big-big, but Nemuri doesn’t care anymore.

She should have known better than to expect… than to think… Well, whatever it was that she had been thinking.

“Whatever,” she says, too tired to argue. The euphoria of her earlier victory tastes kind of sour now. She sends Takeyama the darkest glare she can manage but otherwise ignores her to get to the locker room — she does start to plot her revenge in her mind, though.

Tensei is waiting for her inside, leaning against the wall by the door to the boys’ locker room. He hasn’t changed and looks dead on his feet, but Nemuri’s heart swells at the sight of him.

“You okay?” he asks her with a concerned smile.

Nemuri shrugs, silent for a moment as she mulls it over. “Not really,” she finally admits. It’s true, even if she’s not quite sure _why_ Takeyama’s words affected her so much, especially when they’re nothing that the girl hadn’t said before.

Tensei’s eyes darken. “Want me to hex her for you?”

That surprises a laugh out of her, and Nemuri shakes her head. “No, I’ll be fine — and you know I can cast my own hexes. But thanks for offering.”

“Anytime.” Tensei smiles. He pushes back from the wall and opens his arms. “Hug?”

Nemuri doesn’t hesitate to fall into his arms — Tensei gives the best hugs. She lets it last for one, two, three beats before she pulls back, smiling. “Thanks — but now, go take a shower. You smell.”

Tensei rolls his eyes at her as he pulls back in mock shock. “You’re welcome,” he states dryly. “And you should probably take your own advice — I’m definitely not the only ‘smelly’ one here.”

Nemuri tries to swat his arm, but he dodges, laughing, into the locker room.

Chuckling, Nemuri heads to the girl’s locker room — a shower does sound heavenly right now, and it should be exactly what she needs.

* * *

Nemuri emerges from the shower feeling slightly more alive. The rest of the team is already changed and waiting for her when she comes out, and the room erupts into cheers again.

Tensei moves to her side, shooting her a concerned look that she waves off with a smile. Still, she appreciates it.

Eventually, they move back to Hogwarts proper — Nemuri’s stomach, for one, is screaming for sustenance. She’s so hungry she could eat a Hippogriff.

Hizashi and Shouta are already waiting for them at the Gryffindor table when they finally arrive — Hizashi is nearly vibrating with excitement, while Shouta somehow looks as tired as Nemuri feels.

They both congratulate the team — with varying degrees of enthusiasm — as everyone sits down.

Nemuri ends up sitting between Tensei and Shouta, and she falls upon her food like she hasn’t eaten in days.

Shouta keeps eyeing her with a frown, though, and eventually, Nemuria slows down. “What is it?” she asks.

Shouta shrugs, his frown deepening a little. “Did something happen? You don’t look as… cheerful as I would expect, considering you just won against Takeyama.”

Nemuri scowls at Takeyama’s name, and Shouta’s black eyes sparkle with triumph. “So something _did_ happen,” he states with a hum.

Nemuri pastes a grin on her face and pinches his cheek. “Aww, you _do_ care about me, Shouta-kun!”

Shouta shoots her a dark glare as he rubs his cheek. “Whatever,” he mumbles. “You’re clearly fine now.”

“She had a run-in with Takeyama after the match,” Tensei interjects suddenly.

When Nemuri stares at him in betrayal, he shrugs and offers her an apologetic grin. “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear.”

(Two seats away from them, Shinji pauses and drops his head in his hands, mumbling something that sounds like, “ _Why is she like this?_ ”)

“What did she say this time?” Shouta asks, sounding half-mad, half-exasperated.

“Nothing, really.” At her friends’ incredulous looks, she just shrugs. “I swear, it as nothing she hasn’t said before. Just the usual stuff about my age and how I’m basically going to be too old for my broom.”

She scowls and stabs her fork down on her plate. It squeaks unpleasantly against the porcelain, and Nemuri grits her teeth. “I just — I don’t know. There was a moment where things were okay? She thanked me for some advice I gave her _ages ago_ — can you believe she actually remembered it? — and we were _talking_ , but then…”

Nemuri shrugs helplessly, at a loss for words.

“Forget her, then — she sounds like she’s not worth your time,” Shouta says, still scowling.

Nemuri smiles at him. “Thanks — and I guess I should… But first, however, I have to get my revenge.”

Shouta’s eyes widen in alarm, an expression that is quickly mirrored on Tensei’s face. Nemuri can feel her grin grow wider.

“No,” Shouta states. “No way.”

Nemuri flutters her eyelashes at him, leaning in close — Shouta is no fun, though, because he just pushes her back. “No,” he repeats.

Nemuri sighs. “You’re no fun,” she says, pouting, before turning her attention to Tensei.

Tensei’s face flushes red the instant Nemuri starts fluttering her eyes at him — one would think that after five years of being friends with her, he'd have learned to develop some kind of resistance to her tricks, but no. Merlin bless him.

Still, he tries to resist. “I’m not helping you with your revenge,” he tries.

Nemuri bats her eyelashes harder.

“I’m not,” Tensei repeats, but his voice breaks, and Nemuri knows she’s won.

“ _Damn you!_ ” Tensei curses. “Fine, I’ll help — but nothing bad, alright?”

Nemuri rolls her eyes. “Please, you know me — would I really do anything horrible?”

Tensei and Shouta exchange a long, meaningful look before looking back at her.

Nemuri pouts. “I find your lack of faith disturbing. Now, come on, help me brainstorm ideas.”

She’ll recruit Hizashi later — he usually has interesting ideas, at least — once he’s no longer chatting with half the Gryffindor Quidditch team about his commentating.

* * *

Her revenge is blessedly simple in the end. It has to be, considering there are only three weeks left after the final Quidditch match until they have to take OWLs. Most of their time is spent revising — they don’t really have much of it to spare for a revenge plot.

Hizashi, as expected, was a great help — he even convinced Shouta to help, and together they recruited the house-elves.

The house-elves love Shouta. They’ve sort of adopted him, and it’s adorable — the tired boy visits them some nights when he can’t sleep, and he somehow manages to remember all their names.

Nemuri likes to think that they would have agreed to help even without Shouta’s influence, but they’ll probably never know.

They do only agree once that Nemuri explains that Takeyama won’t actually be harmed by this, and that the prank is only supposed to last a day. Shouta mentions that Takeyama hurt her and that Nemuri is only striking back, and while a few of the elves shoot her disapproving look, most of them are much more agreeable after that.

And so it is that on the Thursday the week after the match, Takeyama walks into the Great Hall with robes that are two sizes too small — the elves had informed her they were actually Takeyama’s clothes too, just older ones that had been discarded when she had outgrown them.

Nemuri smirks satisfyingly at the sight, and returns to her breakfast. Her eyes keep wandering back to Takeyama, though — she can’t help it.

Even though the clothes are clearly too small — Mindy, the elf Nemuri had talked to the most, had also charmed them to resist other modifications — Takeyama still carries them well. It’s maddening. Apart from too short sleeves and the way Nemuri can now see her legs up to mid calves, there really isn’t as much of a change as she had thought there would be.

“Stop staring,” Tensei hisses in her ear, “or you’ll make it obvious we were involved. I don’t want to get detention the week before our OWLs — I _can’t_ get detention the week before our OWLs.”

Nemuri rolls her eyes. “You’re not going to get detention. If anything happens, I’ll tell them I acted alone — but it won’t be necessary,” she hastens to add at Tensei’s growingly panicked face, “because nobody is going to detention.”

“Who’s going to detention?” Hizashi asks as he slides in.

Nemuri glares at him — he just stole the slice of toast she’d been buttering, and now he’s eating it like it was his all along. Tensei traps her hand in his to stop her fingers from inching toward her knife.

“Nobody,” she repeats in a pointed hiss, “is going to detention.”

As Hizashi moves to pour himself a glass of pumpkin juice, his eyes clear up and he glances back toward the Hufflepuff table — not, for once, to find Shouta. Probably because Shouta is sitting next to him, attempting to drown himself in coffee, but still — it’s one for the history books.

“Oh,” he says, a hint of glee in his voice, “that’s today, right?”

“Yup,” Nemuri answers with a grin, popping the ‘p’.

Hizashi lets out a low whistle, his eyebrows climbing up as he stares at Takeyama. “Well, I wasn’t expecting it to look like _this._ ”

Nemuri scowls. “ _I know!_ This is terrible — how can she still look so, so —” She cuts off with a wordless scream, muffled by the bread she takes a savage bite out of.

“Hot?” Hizashi supplies — Shouta, beside him, raises his head only long enough to glare at him.

“ _Yes!"_  Nemuri’s eyes widen as she realizes what she’s just agreed to, and she chokes on her bread. “I meant, no. No, of course not. She’s not — I don’t think that Takeyama’s _hot,_ ugh, no way.”

But as she says it, Nemuri realizes that it’s a lie. Objectively, Takeyama is actually pretty good-looking. She’s small and cute, but Quidditch has honed her muscles very nicely, and those too-tight robes aren’t leaving much to the imagination, even with their less than flattering cuts.

Once again, Nemuri scowls.

Tensei and Hizashi are giving her weird looks now, and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it one bit.

“Nemuri…” Hizashi starts, his grin so wide it has to be painful.

“Is it possible that…” Tensei continues, eyes impossibly cheerful.

Nemuri knows where this is going, and she refuses to entertain the possibility.

“No,” she says, cutting in before they can say anything. “I don’t have… _feelings_ for Takeyama. Except for hatred and disgust, because that _brat_ keeps making digs at my age.”

Hizashi wiggles his eyebrows. “Well, you know what they say… Opposites attract and all that.”

Nemuri just stares at him.

Hizashi stares back.

Nemuri raises an eyebrow and he mirrors it.

They stay like this until Nemuri’s eyes start to burn — she doesn’t know who breaks off eye contact first.

She just knows that she turns to Shouta and shuffles closer to him. “Shouta’s my favorite now,” she says with a haughty huff’. “At least, _he_ doesn’t judge me.”

“I’m too tired for this,” Shouta mumbles. “Somebody please put me out of my misery.”

Nemuri laughs as Hizashi instead offers him more coffee.

“Thanks,” Shouta grunts, and Hizashi looks like he’s just been handed the moon.

Nemuri and Tensei share an eye roll, but the subject has been successfully changed.

At least it is, until Takeyama strides toward their little group, a truly thunderous expression on her face. She plants herself right in front of them, hands on her hips as she glowers, and Nemuri almost chokes again.

“What do you want?” Nemuri asks, biting her cheeks and trying not to remember what had happened during their last conversation.

Takeyama glares harder. “What do _I_ want?” She gestures at her body — it causes the cloth of the robes to stretch, a lot, and Takeyama has to abort her gesture with a frustrated huff. “How about you tell me _why you did this to me?"_

Nemuri bites her cheek so hard she tastes blood, and Tensei’s knee nudges her own. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nemuri replies, smiling innocently.

“Right. Of course, you don’t — this has _nothing_ to do with you. Of course.”

Nemuri nods. “Of course.”

Takeyama snarls — inwardly, Nemuri smiles. It feels kind of nice, actually, to not be the one reacting that way for once.

(Part of her remembers how it feels, though, and regrets.)

“I know this was you,” Takeyama continues. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I know it was you. I woke up this morning and all my clothes were too small, and no one had any clothes they could lend me because apparently they all only had _one single outfit left._ ”

Nemuri makes a mental note to thank Mindy again — they hadn’t really thought about that part — as Takeyama continues to glare at her.

“ _I know it was you,_ ” Takeyama repeats, her voice a harsh hiss.

Nemuri shrugs and takes a sip of her pumpkin juice. “Are you sure you didn’t just outgrow your clothes? Maybe you’re too… _big_ for them now.” She smiles sunnily again.

Takeyama falters. “Is that — Is that what this is about? I _said_ I was _sorry!_ ”

Nemuri shrugs again. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

“Hypothetically, though, if we — if she did, everything would be fine by tomorrow morning,” Tensei interjects quickly.

Something flashes in Takeyama’s purple eyes. Nemuri doesn’t know what it is, but it makes her chest kind of ache. It makes her want to apologize.

Before she gets the chance to, however, Takeyama’s eyes narrow. “ _Screw you,_ Kayama. Screw you.”

She spins on her heels and stalks back to her table.

Nemuri watches her go with a sinking heart. “Guys, I think I might have miscalculated.”

Shouta snorts, and says, “No kidding.”

Tensei pats her on the shoulder. “Well, maybe she’ll stop bothering you now, at least. That’s a win, right?”

Nemuri nods absently. “Yeah… A win,” she echoes dully.

For some reason, she’s not all that happy with that perspective — she’d thought she would be, but she’s not.

It’s the second time that victory tastes sour and bitter for her in less than a week, and Nemuri is coming to find that she doesn’t care for it. At all.

* * *

Nemuri doesn’t get the chance to apologize. As Tensei had said, Takeyama seems to be happy to leave her alone now — more than happy to, apparently. She’s actively avoiding Nemuri now, too.

Not that Nemuri actually has much time to look for her — OWLs are almost there, and Nemuri feels beyond stressed. They all do — just yesterday, they’d had to drag Hizashi to the Healing Wing when he crashed after not sleeping for three days straight.

Nemuri isn’t taking anywhere near as many subjects as Hizashi — who took all the hardest electives back in third year and somehow makes it work — but she still feels the pressure. At this point, she’s actually looking forward to the exams themselves, if only because of the actual _end_ they come with.

Of course, when the morning of the first OWLs dawns, bright and early, she feels very differently.

It’s Transfiguration, because of course, she doesn’t get to take a few of the subjects she’s actually good at first, and Nemuri is ready for this day to end by the time she gets down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

They’re all sitting at their own tables for once, so Nemuri really only has Tensei for company. It’s not that she doesn’t get on with the rest of their classmates — it’s just that Tensei, Hizashi, and Shouta are her best friends.

“Kill me, please,” she groans into her food. “Put me out of my misery.”

Tensei laughs, but it’s not as cheerful as it usually is. There are lines of stress around his eyes and mouth that show that the perspective of the exams is getting to him too.

“No can do,” he replies. “Come on, it’s only Transfiguration — you’ll be fine.”

Nemuri scoffs. “Easy for you to say — you’re _good_ at Transfiguration. I’m terrible at it — last time I tried to turn a turtle into a teapot, the teapot _moved._ ”

“It was a very interesting teapot,” Tensei replies, voice carefully bland. “Very unique.”

“Ha ha ha. Very funny.” Nemuri sighs. “I’m doomed — I’m going to fail, I won’t get into the NEWTs class, and then I’ll never be an Auror. My life is over.”

Tensei rolls his eyes at her. “Dramatic much? You’ll be fine — so what if your teapot still had some scales? It still served perfectly fine tea.”

“It _moved_ , Tensei. _Moved._  Why couldn’t we have Charms first? I’m good at Charms — now all the examiners will remember is that I’m terrible at Transfiguration.”

“And I’m bad at Charms — we all have best and worst subjects.” He shrugs. “But I studied for Charms until I knew I’d pass, and I _know_ you did the same for Transfiguration. Don’t think I didn’t see you practicing on those mice yesterday.”

Nemuri blushes. “I put them back to normal once I was done.” There had been a couple of mishaps when she had tried to practice second-year spells she hadn’t done in years, but eventually, her goblets hadn’t shown a trace of fur anymore.

“My point is, you’re going to be fine. _We’re_ going to be fine.”

“You’re right,” Nemuri states, cheering up. “We _are_ going to be fine. We are going to ace these exams, and nothing is going to stop me.”

“That’s the spirit!” Tensei grins widely as he makes a fist and raises it above the table.

Grinning, Nemuri bumps her first against it. She feels steadier, a little less stressed.

The OWLs are only exams, after all. She can deal with exams.

Hopefully.

* * *

Nemuri stumbles out of her Arithmancy OWL drained but pleased. She’s not sure she answered everything right, but she definitely got more right answers than wrong ones, and she’s actually happy with what she did.

She groans as she stretches, making her back crack.

“That’s disgusting,” Hizashi tells her.

Just because she can, Nemuri does it, rolling her shoulders and grinning toothily at Hizashi. “Did you just say something?”

“Nevermind.”

They walk away from the classroom in silence, and then, suddenly, it hits her. This was her last OWL. The exams are done now, they’re finally free.

“We should celebrate,” she blurts out.

Hizashi looks at her like she’s insane. “Nemuri, I love you, but I don’t think anyone’s feeling up to partying right now — and you know how much I love a good party.”

Nemuri rolls her eyes and swats him on the arm. “Not an actual party — but a picnic. We can enjoy the sun for once, get out of that dreary Library.”

Hizashi’s face lights up, and Nemuri knows he’s on board.

Shouta is already conveniently in the kitchens when they get there, and Nemuri asks Mindy if she’d mind relaying the message to Tensei — luckily, the little elf doesn’t, though she does tell Nemuri that it’s a one-time thing.

Twenty minutes later, they end up sprawled out on a white sheet a few feet away from the lake, a basket laden with more food than Nemuri thinks the four of them could eat in an entire week open in the middle of it.

The sun instantly starts to warm her skin, and Nemuri sighs contently as she starts snacking on a ham sandwich.

“So, what are you guys doing for the holidays?” Hizashi asks after a while. “Any plans?”

“I think my parents wanted to go to France for the summer,” Nemuri replies, frowning a little as she tries to remember that letter. “Something about new Potions ingredients, I think.”

Her parents have several greenhouses all over England, and they’re always on the lookout for new and better ways to grow magical plants. This has led to Nemuri experiencing some… interesting holidays, to say the least, as well as a fairly unusual childhood, even by most pureblood standards.

Tensei shrugs, stretching his arms above his head. “I’ll do the usual stuff, I guess — play Quidditch, visit the cousins…”

Three pairs of eyes turn to Shouta, whose face is buried in his arms and hidden by his mess of dark curls. Nemuri, inwardly, chuckling, pokes him in the shoulder until he stirs.

“What?” Shouta glares at them blearily.

“We were talking about the summer holidays,” Nemuri replies. “Hizashi wanted to know what our plans are.”

Shouta shrugs. “Oh.” His eyes flicker to Hizashi. “I… don’t really know? I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere, really — you know my parents are busy.”

Tensei pats him on the arm — just once, because he’s far away enough for the move to be really awkward, and because Shouta glares at him until he stops. “Well, if you want to come over at some point, just let me know. You know you’ll be welcome in my house — my mother probably loves you more than she loves her _actual_ children.”

“That’s because I can actually be quiet,” Shouta mumbles back, his cheeks dusted pink.

Tensei laughs loudly. “Touché. Anyway, you’re _all_ welcome to come over. Anytime. Even you, Hizashi,” he adds, nudging Hizashi’s feet with his own.

“I’m touched,” Hizashi replies, and though the wording is sarcastic, it’s easy to see that Hizashi is actually touched.

They all know why, too. The Yamadas are one of those pureblood families that never quite outgrew its darker reputation, and the fact that Hizashi’s father is part of the Wizengamot and very invested in various anti-Muggle laws — laws that the Iidas firmly oppose — doesn’t really help matters.

“What are _you_ planning on doing, anyway, Hizashi — you know all of our plans, but we know nothing about yours.”

Hizashi chuckles weakly, rubbing his neck. “I — erm, nothing? I mean, you know my parents, they don’t really do the holiday thing.” He rolls his eyes, and in what Nemuri thinks is an imitation of his parents’ voices, states, “ _But Hizashi, holidays are for_ the lazy _— you’re a Yamada, and Yamada aren’t lazy.”_

Nemuri winces, but Tensei is the one to voice her thoughts first. "I'm sorry, Hizashi — you’re definitely welcome to spend the day at my place if you want to escape. You can tell your parents you’re working on your homework with me.”

Nemuri doubly wishes she wasn’t off to France now — not that she has anything against the country, but she’s already been there, and her friends are _here_ , in Britain. Plus, if she stayed, she could have offered Hizashi a place to stay too.

Shouta rolls over and props himself up on his elbows. He angles himself to face Hizashi. “You can stay over at my place, if you want. My parents won’t mind.”

Hizashi’s eyes go wide. “I — Really?” His voice sounds strangled.

Shouta scowls. “Yes, really. I wouldn’t have offered otherwise.”

It’s a little hard to see, but Nemuri could swear that Shouta’s cheeks are flushed red. She bites back a grin, and her eyes flicker to Tensei, who is clearly doing the same. They share a fond eye roll at their friends’ antics.

Nemuri claps her hands, sitting up with a wide grin. “Well, it looks like we all have plans now.” They all nod, though Hizashi still looks a little stunned. “What do you all say we play some Exploding Snap?”

“You brought that game?” Tensei yelps, staring at her disbelievingly.

Nemuri arches an eyebrow back at him, shaking her head. “Of course, I did. I _always_ bring a game of Exploding Snap with me.”

“ _You burned off your eyebrows last time._ ” Tensei hisses. “You singed _mine."_

Nemuri rolls her eyes as she starts to shuffle the cards. “Come on, Tensei, I was drunk. We all know not to hold anything I do while drunk against me when I’m sober. Sober Nemuri has never singed anyone’s eyebrows.”

“ _Yet_ ,” Shouta mutters uncharitably — just for that remark, Nemuri is going to make sure he loses at least one round.

Maybe even two.

She’s willing to bet anything that Shouta would look _hilarious_ with singed eyebrows.

(She’s right, of course. Shouta does look hilarious with soot marks all over his face, his hair blown back and even messier than usual.

But then again, so do the rest of them.

One would think that after five years playing the game, one of them, at least, would actually be good at it. But no, they’re all still as terrible at Exploding Snap as they were on their first day, and it’s not looking like they'll be improving any time soon.

Nemuri wouldn’t have it any other way.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this story! :p I hope you guys enjoyed it, because I certainly had fun writing it :)

Parting ways at the train station is hard.

Nemuri’s going to miss these idiots this summer. To think that she won’t see her friends for two whole months is almost a physical pain. Honestly, sometimes (often) they feel like more of a family than her parents do. They’re like the siblings she’d never known she needed or wanted in her life, and not seeing them for months after so long spent seeing them _every day_ is always hard.

She usually gets to see her friends during the holidays too, and knowing that this year she won’t get the chance, that their next meeting will be back on this train platform — or, if they’re lucky, at Diagon’s Alley when they visit to buy their school supplies — is hard.

She makes sure to hug everyone extra hard before she leaves, hurrying toward her impatient parents and shouting over her shoulder that they better send her tons of letters.

Next year, she’s going to try to take a leaf out of Hizashi’s book, and ask to stay the summer with one of her friends instead. Her parents have never agreed before, but Nemuri’ll turn seventeen next year. She’ll be an adult — surely it’ll be fine then.

“How was your year, dear?” Her mum asks her as they walk through the gate and into Muggle London.

Before Nemuri can open her mouth to answer, her father lets out an annoyed noise.

“Do we really have time for this? Kahuri, come on, you know we’re in a hurry — this can wait.”

Nemuri’s mum rolls her eyes at her husband. “Tohaku, this is important — we _make time_ for Nemuri, remember? Your daughter, _remember?”_ Her tone is hard and her eyes are diamond sharp, and once again, Nemuri is reminded of how formidable her mother can be.

“Yes, I think I remember my daughter, Kahuri. Thank you.” Her father turned chocolate eyes toward her, his face softening. “Sorry about this, Nemuri, but you know how it is — we have a Portkey to catch.”

“And we’ll _catch it,”_ Nemuri’s mother replies exasperatedly. She stands on her tiptoes to kiss her husband’s lips, and Nemuri averts her eyes with a wince — seeing her parents like this always feels weird.

“Why do you always have to worry so much about everything?” she continues.

“Because you never worry enough about anything,” her father retorts, and if her parents get any sappier, Nemuri might actually self-combust in embarrassment.

“Mum, Dad, didn’t you say we had a Portkey to catch?” Nemuri asks, raising her trunk a little higher.

Her parents step apart. “Yes, we did,” her father says, bending down to grab her trunk and setting off without waiting for them — typical.

Nemuri and her mother follow quickly. “You can tell us everything about your year once we get to France,” her mother says, but she already sounds distracted. “Oh, you’re going to _love_ the house we picked! It’s near Cannes, too, so we can have a day just the two of us — what do you think?”

Nemuri hates herself for the lurch of hope that surge through her stomach — her mother always does this. She always makes plans, always gets Nemuri’s hopes up, only to never follow through on any of them.

“Yeah, it sounds great,” she finally mumbles, forcing a smile on her face. “I can’t wait.”

Her mother grins back, bright and warm, and keeps chatting at Nemuri about the house and their plans for the summer as they walk.

Eventually, they come to a stop behind the train station — Nemuri has to shade her eyes with her hand to keep the sun from blinding her.

Her father digs out an old can, slightly rusted, from his pockets, and extends it toward them.

Reluctantly, Nemuri goes to touch it — she knows it’ll be clean, but Portkeys always look like dirty, useless things on purpose, and this one looks especially disgusting.

“You remember how this works, right, Nemuri?” he mother asks urgently.

Nemuri only barely manages to bite back an eye roll. “Yes — keep my finger on the Portkey, don’t let go for anything, and bend my knees for the landing. I have traveled through Portkey before, Mum.”

Her mother smiles and reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind Nemuri’s ear, patting her cheek afterward. “I worry, is all.”

Nemuri’s father calls them back to attention — earning himself a dark look from his wife — and moments later, a hook pulls at Nemuri’s navel, and they’re off.

France, here she comes.

* * *

The house is lovely, as her mother promised. It’s magical, too, which is to Nemuri’s preference — she doesn’t mind the non-magical world, but on the rare occasions her parents had stayed in Muggle houses, Nemuri had been… bored.

One of her favorite parts about the house is her room — in the attic, which she had been set on complaining about until she had actually seen the room itself. It’s huge, bigger than the bedroom Nemuri has back home, and decorated like something out of a fairytale.

Midnight, her owl, sets for the rafters and nests there like she’s lived here all her life.

The other thing she truly loves about this house — and the one thing that might this trip not so bad after all — is the garden.

Well, the garden and the pool.

Nemuri is already looking forward to getting to spend her days lazing under the sun — her parents have even told her that the property is charmed with anti-Muggles charms. As long as she doesn’t go too high up, she’ll be fine to fly around.

Of course, it’s not as good as if she’d stayed in the UK, where she could have played practice matches with her friends — Tensei’s family, especially, is always a trip and a half to play Quidditch with.

Still, it’s something — more than she’d expected.

Of course, after a day spent in the Hogwarts Express and the Portkey trip, Nemuri is too tired to do much exploring. They eat an early dinner — during which Nemuri talks about her year.

Or tries to, anyway. All her parents seem to want to know is how her OWLs went.

“Erm, well, I think?” Nemuri replies in between two bites of her mother’s pasta dish.

“You think?” Her father frowns. “Nemuri, your grades are important for your future — your OWLs will serve to determine what type of job you can get. You need to take them seriously!”

“ _I did!_ ” Nemuri snaps, biting her tongue to keep the rest of her angry retort from slipping past her lips. She already knows it wouldn’t be any use to tell her father that she knows all this already, and that she did her best.

She just doesn’t know if that was enough — nobody ever does, when it comes to exams.

Nemuri turns her eyes to her mother, but the woman only offers her a soft, pityingly look that makes Nemuri’s chest twist.

Suddenly, her food sits heavy in her stomach, and she had trouble swallowing her mouthful.

“Your father’s right, Nemuri.” Her mother sighs. “I know we said you could play that… _game_ if you managed to keep up with your studies, but if it seems like juggling both is too hard for you, maybe you should just give one of them up.”

Nemuri’s blood runs cold. “ _No, you can’t!”_

Her mother still stares at her with that awful pity in her eyes. “It’s for your own good, Nemuri,” she says, reaching over the table to pat Nemuri’s hand softly.

Her eyes flicker back to her husband’s before she focuses back on Nemuri. “Of course, I suppose we can wait until your OWL results come in. I’m sure you’ve done wonderfully, darling, right?”

“I did my best,” Nemuri replies, but the words taste like ashes on her tongue.

“Well, let’s hope that’s enough, then,” her father says.

Nemuri nods, her throat tight.

The rest of the dinner happens in silence. Nemuri doesn’t mention Quidditch — she stops trying to. She doesn’t talk about Takeyama and the way her House won the Cup this year, doesn’t mention how she’s probably the favorite to get the Captain position this year, now that the old one has graduated.

Quidditch may be just a hobby for her, just a sport in the end and not something she wants to do once she leaves Hogwarts, but it’s also something she loves doing.

Something she’s proud of being a part of.

She wishes her parents could see that.

That night, Nemuri doesn’t fall asleep until late into the night, even though earlier she’d been so tired she could barely stay awake for dinner.

And when she does finally fall asleep, her sleep is uneasy, her mind fraught with nightmares she doesn’t remember when she wakes up.

* * *

As expected, Nemuri’s parents are gone when she wakes up the next day. She finds a note, telling her they’re working and will be back in time for dinner, and that there is food for her in the fridge.

It’s a little late, so she doesn’t bother with breakfast besides grabbing an apple that she eats as she explores the house.

She walks barefoot on cold tiles, and the house feels almost… haunted in its emptiness. It feels bigger too than it had yesterday, and Nemuri attributes it to the fact that she’s alone now.

Eventually, she walks back up to her room where she showers and changes into one of her swimsuits. It takes her slightly longer than she’d expected — she’d told her mother to bring some, and it looks like her mother didn’t bother with trying to pick a couple when she could just grab all the swimwear in Nemuri’s closet.

More than half of it is too small, and Nemuri discards them with a bittersweet sigh — she’d like those bikinis. She does find one that’s okay eventually, though, and then she wanders outside with a towel, a pen, and a notebook.

It feels almost odd to be able to use a pen so freely again — at Hogwarts, quills are still required for everything official. Nemuri, as well as many other students, take their notes using pens or pencils, but for homework and exams, they have to use quills.

Nemuri herself does like quills better for some things — like letters. It gives her correspondence a more personal feel, she thinks.

Also, she can never get her handwriting to look as curly as she wants it when she uses a pen.

For drawing, though, pens are much better.

Drawing is another one of her hobbies, though it’s not one Nemuri indulges in often. She mostly saves it for times like these ones, where she’s alone. She’s not very good at it, but it helps her to put down what she sees or thinks about on paper.

But first, she has a pool to enjoy.

* * *

Nemuri falls into a rhythm quickly enough — wake up, shower, get dressed, spend the rest of the day by the pool and/or exploring the garden. She sees her parents for dinner, where they make awkward small talk, and sometimes, if she wakes up early enough, they also share breakfast.

She misses her friends desperately, and Nemuri spends hours penning them letters, even though she doesn’t really have much to say. Still, her main other option to keep busy right now is homework, but not only does she not want to, but it also would make her parents happy.

Right now, Nemuri isn’t really feeling like pleasing her parents. Their conversation on the first night still sits ill with her, for all that they all act like it never happened.

Even so, sending letters to all of her friends doesn’t take her that long, and eventually, she has to settle in and wait for answers. Midnight is gone, carrying her letters back to the UK with her, and now Nemuri truly spends her days alone.

It’s boring.

So boring that, in fact, Nemuri’s mind starts to wander.

It comes back to Takeyama, as her thoughts often do. More specifically, it comes back to their last conversation.

It’s a crazy idea, one clearly born from the utter monotony of her days, and yet… And yet, once that thought has crossed her mind, Nemuri can’t get rid of it.

See, her last talk with Takeyama is another thing that sits ill with her. Not because it ended badly, though she certainly feels bad about that part (even though Takeyama had kind of asked for it), but because in the beginning, their talk had been… nice, somehow.

In those early moments, Nemuri had caught sight of somebody she wouldn’t mind talking to again — until, at least, that girl had been buried back under whatever mask Takeyama thought she needed to wear.

But the point here isn’t that Nemuri feels bad about this — the point is that she meant to apologize, and never got the chance to.

Now, she doesn’t know Takeyama’s address, but she knows somebody who does — and if that doesn’t work, well, there hasn’t been a person Midnight hasn’t been able to find.

Writing to Shinji is easy. They’re not quite friends, but being on the same Quidditch teams for years has made them friendly, at least. The younger Gryffindor is friends with Takeyama, surely he knows her address.

Waiting for Midnight to return so she can send that letter is nerve-wracking. Nemuri composes her letter to Takeyama in her head while she paces in the garden and down to the beach.

She’d found the beach on her second weekend there, and had spent ten minutes fuming that her parents hadn’t even told her it was there. It’s nice — great, even — but Nemuri can’t help but wish she had some company.

Hell, she’d even take Takeyama at this point.

* * *

Midnight ends up flying back into her room in the middle of the night, scaring her half to death. One look at her and Nemuri understands her owl isn’t going to be up for another trip this long before another a couple of days. Midnight might try to kill her if she asks — if the owl doesn’t just keel over first.

Thankfully, she’s also carrying replies from Hizashi, Shouta and Tensei. Nemuri almost starts reading them right away, but the fear and adrenaline are leaving her system, and she falls asleep before she can do more than untie the letters from Midnight’s leg.

She wakes up early the next morning — though not early enough to catch her parents — and grabs the letters on her way down.

Shouta’s and Hizashi’s letters are nice, but ultimately uneventful. They must read like one of hers, really — minus Hizashi’s gay crisis (continued), of course. Shouta’s own mess is less obvious, because it’s Shouta, but reading between the lines has Nemuri grinning at nothing for a long time _after_ she’s put down their letters.

Tensei’s letter is much more interesting — not because it’s longer than the others, since it’s in fact quite short, but because of what that letter contains in between Tensei’s answers to her rather mundane questions.

From the messy penmanship, Nemuri can tell he was excited — Tensei usually has the best handwriting out of all of them.

It’s also easy to see why. Apparently, Inoue — Tensei’s mum — is pregnant again. She has been for a while, too, since it seems like Tensei’s going to get a little brother or sister sooner rather than later.

_Mum says she wanted it to be a surprise, and that’s why she swore Dad and everyone who wasn’t at Hogwarts to secrecy._

_Well, consider me surprised. I almost can’t believe it, Nemuri ~~—~~ _ ~~_I ’m going to get another sibling! I hope it’s a sister this time… That would be nice._ ~~ _On second thought, maybe a brother would be better. I know how to deal with brothers. I hope it’s a brother._

Nemuri actually laughs out loud at that part — she can just picture Tensei’s panicked face. She’s not sure what prompted his change of mind, but she can guess — Tensei has many, many cousins, after all, and they’re all terrifying.

Another little Iida, though. That sounds… interesting. Tensei has two younger brothers already, but they’re both old enough to have started school too.

Come to think of it, that’s probably exactly _why_ Tensei is getting another sibling, and Nemuri pulls a face at the thought, wishing she could _Obliviate_ herself.

She spends the entire day replying to their letters. She makes Tensei’s extra long, jokingly asking him to mention to his mother that _Nemuri_ is a lovely name for a girl, because he had the most interesting news for her.

She writes back to Shouta and Hizashi separately, and then laughs when she finds how close the two letters are. It’s no surprise, really — there’s only so much love advice she can give before it all starts to sound the same, after all.

Most of what she writes amounts to a ‘for the love of Merlin, please make a move already’. Those two idiots are even spending the summer together, surely they can finally get together and stop driving Tensei and her insane with their ‘will-they-won’t-they’ dance.

Perhaps they’ll just have to lock them into a room once they’re back at Hogwarts and pray for the best — Nemuri’s considered it before and dismissed the plan as too eccentric, but at this rate, she might as well try it.

Time passes desperately slowly as Nemuri waits for Midnight to recuperate enough to carry all of her letters back, but once she does, it seems to drag on even more.

Nemuri takes up doodling again in a desperate attempt to avoid her homework for a little bit longer.

She has to stop, though, when she finds Takeyama’s face staring back at her on every page.

* * *

In his letter, Shinji sounds a little dubious about her motives. Nemuri can’t really blame him — as far as he knows, she and Takeyama hate each other’s guts.

He does, however, enclose Takeyama’s contact information — pleading with her to play nice, isn’t he just adorable?

Nemuri sighs in relief as she traces the letters.

She hasn’t written Takeyama’s letter yet, though. Or rather, she hasn’t put it down on paper. The words are so clear in her mind, but for some reason, every time that she tries to put them on paper, they dry up.

It’s maddening.

At least, Midnight is getting a well-deserved rest as she figures it out, though.

In the end — and after well over a dozen drafts — Nemuri settles for this:

_Takeyama,_

_I wanted to apologize for the way I acted last year. I overreacted, and that prank wasn’t funny. I shouldn’t have acted that way — not toward you, not toward anyone._

_So here it is: I’m sorry. I’m not asking for forgiveness, but I wanted you to know that I’m sorry about what I did._

_Nemuri Kayama_

For some reason, she can’t bring herself to write _Dear Takeyama._ It’s not that the words ring false — surprisingly — or that Nemuri deliberately tries to be insulting, but that she can feel her cheeks warm whenever she thinks about those words, her heart fluttering oddly in her chest.

So Nemuri had scowled and scratched out the _dear_ part out of her letters, and everything had gone on much more smoothly from here on out.

She’s still not quite satisfied with that letter — it doesn’t sound as good as it had in her mind — but she’s pretty sure it’s the best it will get. That will have to be enough.

She feels surprisingly light, watching Midnight carry off that letter. It’s like a weight was lifted off her chest, and Nemuri feels better for it.

She hadn’t been aware of quite how uneasy her last interaction with Takeyama still made her until now, it seems.

* * *

Nemuri isn’t expecting an answer from Takeyama. Like she said in that letter, she’s not expecting forgiveness — she’s not even sure she _wants_ it. Yes, she’d overreacted, and yes, maybe that prank had turned out to be a little too mean — had Takeyama been driven almost to tears? Sometimes Nemuri isn’t sure. She hates that she isn’t sure — but Nemuri hadn’t meant it to be mean.

She had just wanted to get back at Takeyama for once.

So no, she’s not really expecting an answer. The best she can hope for, she figures, is for Takeyama to actually _read_ the letter once she sees who it’s from instead of instantly throwing it out.

That’s why she so surprised to see Midnight come back one night with a piece of parchment tied to her leg. It’s laconic, even shorter than Nemuri’s own letter had been.

Just one word, really.

_Alright._

It drives her mad, that word. What does Takeyama mean by it? Is she telling Nemuri that she’s forgiven, that the incident is forgotten now? Or does the message have another meaning, something less obvious?

She pulls at her hair in frustration, muffling a scream into her pillow.

Why does Takeyama always have to be so _annoying?_ She’s got to be doing it on purpose, there’s no other explanation possible. She’s trying to drive Nemuri mad, and she’s succeeding.

That night, Nemuri doesn’t sleep until very, very late.

 _Alright._ That word dances before her eyes and echoes in her dreams, and when she finally wakes up — exhausted — Nemuri doesn’t feel like she has a better grasp on the situation.

It’s almost enough to get her to send another letter to Takeyama, but… No. That would be letting her win. What would she even say? _Send me another letter, I didn’t understand the last one?_

No, Takeyama would probably only be too happy to hear something like this.

Besides, Nemuri’s decided that her letter to Takeyama was going to be the last letter her owl will carry for a while.

Luckily, Hizashi and Tensei have both said they’d be trying to use their own owls too from here on out, so Nemuri will be able to stop sending Midnight on such long trips so often. She hadn’t realized how much of a toll it would take on her owl to carry her correspondence between the two countries when she’d told her friends to write her as many letters as they could.

So, no, she’s not going to send another letter to Takeyama, but… She kind of wants to.

* * *

The thing is, despite the fact that Nemuri would rather do anything else, she eventually has to start on her summer homework.

Not out of any real necessity — by this point, she still has over a month of holidays to deal with her essays — but because she’s dreadfully bored.

The house her parents picked is great, yes, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere. Nemuri’s not even sure there are Muggles around — she’s seen a couple boats pass by, far off into the horizon, when she went to the beach, but that’s about it.

She’s in the middle of her Charms essay — well, her first draft for it, anyway — when Midnight flies in and settles right onto her book.

“Are you for real?” Nemuri grumbles as she hurries to move everything out of the way — Midnight has the weirdest habit to bite her quills, and her inkpot already almost well over once. Nemuri really doesn’t want her owl to ruin her homework.

Midnight just preens a little, sending her a look that clearly states how little she cares for her owner’s opinion, before she extends her leg.

Nemuri’s mouth runs dry as she unties the piece of parchment. “That’s from Takeyama, right?” she asks, her fingers hovering over the paper.

Midnight just shrugs and hops off her Charms book — two wingbeats later and she’s in the air again, flying toward Nemuri’s bedroom as Nemuri curses and tries to stop her papers from falling to the ground.

“Well, I’m taking that as a yes, then,” she mutters to herself as she gathers her homework back on the table. Luckily nothing is ruined, though the ink on her last two sentences is a tad smudged.

Takeyama’s letter — because it has to be from her, who else could it be? — is crinkled in her hand, and Nemuri winces as she opens it. Thankfully, there aren’t any rips or anything, and the message turns out to be so short that Nemuri’s pretty sure no amount of crinkling could have damaged it.

It’s just one sentence, followed by her name. _I accept your apology,_ it says.

Nemuri traces the looping letters with her fingers, unsure of what to think.

Eventually, she sighs and puts the letter away. It looks like Takeyama forgave her — or at least like she’s not holding out on that grudge anymore. It gives Nemuri hope for the coming year, though she makes a point to tell herself not to hope _too much._

That letter didn’t say anything about Takeyama’s own behavior after all, and how she’d essentially spent a year glaring and antagonizing her.

Still, it’s nice to know that Takeyama took the time to reply to her letter, even if her answer is even shorter than Nemuri’s letter had been.

Idly, Nemuri wonders if maybe it took Takeyama as long to compose her answer than it had taken Nemuri to write her letter.

Probably not — but for some reason, Nemuri likes the thought.

* * *

Nemuri expects her mind to quiet after that letter, but no. It still wanders back to Takeyama, and how her face had looked when she’d marched up to the Gryffindor table, clad in too tight clothes, to curse in Nemuri’s face.

She tries drawing again, if only to get the images out of her head, but all it gives her is another sketchbook filled with pictures of Takeyama that she really, really doesn’t want to keep.

In the end, she buries the sketchbooks at the bottom of her trunk, and she goes back to her homework.

Those essays won’t write themselves, after all.

* * *

The owl from the Ministry drops by the same day as the one from Hogwarts. The same morning, even, and it’s somehow timed so that both of her parents are still there. Nemuri is pretty sure that those letters are _not_ supposed to arrive at the same time, but she supposes that her being in France rather than in Britain might have contributed to some delay or special treatment.

“Well, then, open them,” her mother says with an encouraging smile.

Nemuri pastes on a smile of her own on her face as she unties the letters.

She wants to look at the letter from Hogwarts first, but she knows this isn’t what her parents want. They want to know about her OWLs results, and so does she, but…

But Nemuri can’t stop thinking about her father calling Quidditch a stupid and useless sport, and telling her she’ll only be allowed to keep playing if her grades satisfy him.

(Not satisfy the teachers — nevermind that there is no way Nemuri would have been allowed to stay on the team if she had been in danger of failing her year. The only opinion that matters is her parents’, and more specifically her father’s crazy expectations.)

“Go on,” her mother continues, and from the corner of her eyes, she can see her father’s smile start to stiffen.

Sighing, she reaches for the envelope from the Ministry.

It is oddly light for something so important, and Nemuri swallows heavily as she breaks the seal open.

Most of the letter is just platitudes, and she lets her eyes fly over them until she finds her scores.

Her heart races as she reads on, and she can’t help the grin that breaks open on her face as she finds that she passed everything — even Transfiguration and Potions, and these are arguably her first subjects. She didn’t get Os there — not that she’d expected to — but the Es staring back at her on the paper are enough to grant her access to all of the NEWT-level classes she needs to become an Auror.

Her mother leans over her shoulder to peek at the results, and Nemuri’s too relieved to care. Her mother’s hand feels warm on her skin as she squeezes her shoulder once before pressing a light kiss on top of her hair.

“Well done, Nemuri,” she states. She pries the letter out of Nemuri’s numb fingers and hands it to her husband.

“... Yes, Nemuri, well done,” her father says once he’s read her results. His pride in her feels cold though, and Nemuri shivers a little.

But since her father’s satisfied, she can finally turn to the letter she _really_ wants to open.

Her Hogwarts letter is heavier this year. At first, she thinks it’s just in her mind — after all, they only get one letter from the school a year, and she could be misremembering it — but no, it’s definitely heavier.

It could just be that her OWLs results are padding up the letter, since there’s bound to be some papers to fill about what classes she wants to take, but Nemuri can’t imagine that they’d have this much weight.

She _had been_ the favorite to get the Quidditch Captain position though, and her fingers shake with excitement as she breaks open the seal on the letter.

The gleaming badge that slides into her palm sends her heart racing, and she grins so wide her cheeks start to hurt instantly.

“I’ve been made Captain!”

Nemuri cheers, and her mother cheers with her, kissing her cheeks exuberantly. Her father stays silent though, his eyes a little cold, and for a terrible second, Nemuri thinks he’ll still forbid her to play. But his face breaks into a small smile, and Nemuri exhales in relief.

“Well done, Nemuri. Well done, indeed.”

She feels so high she could be flying.

* * *

The rest of the holidays seem to fly by after this, and before she knows it, Nemuri’s standing in Diagon Alley, anxiously scanning the crowd for her friends. They’d all agreed to meet here and shop for supplies together, but Nemuri seems to be the first one here.

… Probably because she left home much earlier than she needed to, and actually had breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron.

Finally, though, she sees a familiar head standing out in the crowd. Smirking, she pounces.

Tensei, who’s standing beside one of his brothers and a couple of cousins, only barely manages to catch her and not fall on his ass. His family is wiser than him, and they edge away from Tensei slowly, eyeing Nemuri cautiously.

Adorable, how they think that will keep them safe.

“Nemuri,” Tensei says, winded. “Hi.”

She grins back and rocks on her heels. “Hi. 

No parents today?” she asks.

Tensei shakes his head. “No, they had something to do — and apparently, I’m old enough to count as the next best thing to adult supervision now.”

Nemuri snorts. “You? Have they gone mad?”

Tensei pouts as he crosses his arms. “Come on, I can be responsible — I’ll have you know I’m Prefect for a reason.”

Nemuri nods, fighting back a grin. “Huh-uh. Then where did your family go?”

Tensei turns around, and curses as he sees the same thing Nemuri does — his brother and cousins, walking away toward the shops. “Hey, guys!” he shouts. “We meet back here at five!”

Somebody shouts back, “Sure thing, Tensei-nii!” and Tensei turns back to Nemuri with a smug grin.

“See? I totally got this.”

* * *

Hizashi and Shouta are the last to join them. They arrive together, but that was to be expected, as they had spent the summer together at Shouta’s place.

Less expected is the way they’re walking hand in hand. By her side, Tensei freezes, and Nemuri can feel her grin grow until it hurts.

She squeals as Hizashi and Shouta finally come to a stop in front of them, but before they can even get a greeting out, Nemuri says, “Oh Merlin, am I dreaming or are you guys together now? Are you two finally dating? _Tensei, pinch me.”_

Obligingly, Tensei does, and Nemuri whirls around on him with a hissed yelp. “I didn’t mean for real!”

Tensei looks unrepentant. “My bad. You should have been clearer then.”

Nemuri growls at him but she turns back to their friends with a sunny smile — just in time to see Shouta let go of Hizashi’s hand, saying, “No.”

It would look marginally less like a lie if his cheeks weren’t so red, or if Hizashi didn’t just laugh and grab Shouta’s hand again. “Yep, we are!” he shouts.

Shouta kicks him in the shin, scowling, but he doesn’t let go of Hizashi’s hand again.

Tensei pushes past Nemuri to pull them both into a hug. “Finally! I’m so happy for you two!”

Shouta looks supremely uncomfortable as he pats Tensei’s back with his free hand, but Hizashi just keeps grinning. “Thanks, Tensei!” he says once Tensei withdraws. Quietly, Shouta mutters the same.

“It was about time,” Nemuri adds, winking at them both. “I thought I was going to lock the two of you in a room to get you to talk about your feelings.”

Hizashi pouts, and he whines. “Aw, come on, we weren’t _that_ bad.”

Tensei chuckles as he shakes his head. “No, trust me, you really were.”

Before anyone can say anything else, Shouta interrupts. “Are we going to buy our supplies now or what?”

Tensei snaps to attention almost instantly. “Right. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” He grins sheepishly.

Nemuri almost considers protesting that they’re not really in any hurry, and that this is clearly a ploy from Shouta to avoid more teasing (ha! He should know better), but her friends do have a point. It’s still early enough now that the Alley isn’t overcrowded, but this close to September 1st, this won’t last.

They’re not the last one to save their shopping for the last minute, after all.

Sighing, Nemuri digs out her list from her pockets. “Should we start with books or ingredients?” She then eyes her friends again, who she now notices are markedly taller than she remembers them being, and corrects herself with a wince. “Actually, why don’t we go see about some new uniforms first. We can do the rest while they prepare them, and pick them up at the end of the day.”

“An excellent idea!” Tensei nods. “Onward, then!” He leaves quickly enough that they’re all forced to jog after him, and yeah, Nemuri’s definitely missed them over the past few months.

Letters just can’t convey _this_ properly.

* * *

Mid-afternoon finds them spread out around a table at Fortescue’s, enjoying icecream as their bagged purchases rest on the ground.

Nemuri stretches her legs and arms, moaning a little as it makes her back crack. Two tables over, a couple of boys suddenly turn very red, and she winks at them mirthfully.

“You really are shameless.” Shouta’s voice draws her attention back to their own table, and Nemuri grins at him as she licks her spoon.

Disappointingly — but not unexpectedly — Shouta only raises an eyebrow at her, and Nemuri sighs dramatically. “You’re no fun.” She pouts.

“We don’t have the same definition of ‘fun’,” Shouta retorts, which, point.

Her eyes flicker over to Hizashi and Tensei, but the two boys are still deep into a conversation on the Potions essay they had to write during the summer, and Nemuri really isn’t interested in hearing more of that.

She turns back to Shouta, grinning. “So,” she says, nodding toward Hizashi, who’s pushed his own icecream across the table so he and Shouta could share, “how did this happen? Tell me _everything.”_

Shouta stares at her blankly. “No.”

“Aw, come on, Shouta, you know I’ve been waiting for this for literal _ages!”_ She pouts, jutting out her lower lip and batting her eyelashes at him. “Last I heard, you were pining and sure he’d never like you back — what changed?”

Shouta sighs, but he seems to realize that Nemuri won’t simply give up, because he relents. Somewhat. “We… talked,” he says, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “He realized I liked him too and I realized that he liked me, and we decided that we should date.” He bites into his icecream and swallows. “It was logical.”

“ _It was logical’._ Shouta, you are _killing_ me.”

Shouta’s eyebrows draw together. “It _was_ logical,” he repeats, his tone slightly more defensive.

But Nemuri sees the way his face softens with fondness, just a little, when Hizashi sends him a bright smile before he snatches some of Shouta’s icecream — proof that Gryffindors aren’t the only brave ones — and she snorts. “Right. ‘Logical’.”

“What?” Shouta’s head snaps toward her, and he’s scowling again.

Nemuri allows her grin to grow wider. “Nothing,” she replies, sing-songing.

Shouta eyes her dubiously, but eventually, he returns to his food — and to fending off Hizashi’s attempts to steal more from his bowl.

It’s half-hearted at best, a far cry of what it would be like if she or Tensei tried the same thing, and Nemuri just keeps grinning as she eats her own icecream.

* * *

The 9 and ¾ platform is bustling with people when Nemuri gets there, and she has to elbow quite a few individuals to actually get to the train. She returns each dark look with a bright grin as her eyes scan the crowd for her friends.

They haven’t formally agreed to meet here, but it’s what they’ve done for the past four years. No reason why they wouldn’t do it this year too.

Her parents shrunk her luggage and she put it in her pockets, so at least she doesn’t have to worry about getting those on the train, but having free hands doesn’t help her much when it comes to searching the crowd. Nemuri may not be small, but there are plenty of taller people here, and that makes it harder to see anything other than the glaring red of the Hogwarts Express.

For an instant, she thinks she can see a flash of white blond in the corner of her eyes, long hair secured in a high ponytail. Her heart skips a beat as her feet turn in that direction, but before she can take a single step, a voice calls out her name and snaps her out of this daze.

“Nemuri! Nemuri!” The crowd parts for Tensei like he’s royalty, which is decidedly unfair because Nemuri had to _fight_ to get here, and he pulls her into a one-armed bear-hug. “It’s so nice to see you! Come on, you’re the last one here — we’ve been waiting for you!”

Nemuri returns the hug with a cheerful grin. “It’s nice to see you too. Even if we saw each other just a week ago,” she adds, batting her eyelashes teasingly.

Adorably, Tensei blushes a little, even though he busters through it with a laugh. “Come,” he repeats, “let’s go, or the train will leave without us.”

“Show me the way then.” As she starts to follow Tensei, though, her eyes wander back toward the station. She doesn’t really know what she’s looking for — that blond hair, maybe? — but she doesn’t find it.

“Yes Captain, my Captain,” Tensei replies with a mock bow, snapping her back to attention.

Nemuri snorts so hard she nearly misses the step to board the train. “That’s going to be a thing, isn’t it?”

Tensei just grins back at her, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “I have no idea what you mean by that.”

“Sure you don’t.” She shakes her head as they pause in front of a compartment, and Tensei pushes the door open.

Inside, Shouta is dozing off against Hizashi’s shoulder. When the door opens, he cracks an eye open, but open seeing it’s only Tensei and Nemuri, he only groans out a, “Hi,” before closing his eyes again, seemingly intent on ignoring them.

Hizashi chuckles, setting down the Potions book he’d been reading, and waves at them with his free hand. “Hey, Nemuri!”

“Hizashi,” Nemuri greets with a smile and a nod, “Shouta.”

She goes in and Tensei follows, pulling the door shut behind them. Nemuri collapses on her seat and stretches with a loud moan. She perks up quickly though, and rummages through her pockets for the game she put there this morning.

She presents the cards with a smirk. “Anybody up for a game of Exploding Snap?”

“Oh hell no.” “Not in your wildest dreams.”

Her friends’ answers make her laugh, and Nemuri tucks the game back out of sight. “Fine, be like this.” She pouts. “Cowards.”

Hizashi shouts her a look like he knows what she’s doing — and he probably does — but Tensei is bristling already, even if it’s just a little. She smiles back innocently.

It’s fine, really. She has the entire day to get them to change their minds. She’ll get her way in the end — she usually does.

* * *

As Nemuri impatiently waits for the Sorting to end — she’s famished but there are still half a dozen students left to sort — Shinji slides into the seat next to hers.

He looks like he wants to ask her something, and Nemuri has a feeling she knows why. She sighs, pausing in her conversation with Tensei, and turns toward him.

“What is it, Shinji?”

Shinji shifts uncomfortably. “I… I wanted to know...How did it go?” His voice squeaks a little on the last part, and he winces while Nemuri bites back a chuckle.

Despite herself, Nemuri’s eyes rift toward the Hufflepuff table. Takeyama is laughing, her head thrown back, and the curve of her neck is showing. Nemuri snaps her head back to Shinji, scowling. “About?” she asks, her tone more biting than she’d meant it to be.

Shinji stares at her in exasperation, and besides Nemuri, Tensei buries a fit of laughter into his fist — proof, once again, that her friend actually is a terrible person.

“About that letter,” he says. “You know, the one you sent _me_ a letter for?”

Nemuri can practically feel Tensei perk up next to her, and she has to repress a scowl.

“What letter~?” Tensei asks, his voice cheerfully curious.

“None of your business,” Nemuri snaps back, but her cheeks are already flushing pink. “And didn’t _she_ tell you all about it — you’re friends, aren’t you?”

Nemuri realizes that this was a bad idea when Shinji just grins, his eyes sparkling with too much innocence for it to be real. “Oh, no.” He shakes his head with mock sadness. “Yuu refused to tell me anything about it. Just that you, you know, wrote her. I kind of assumed it went okay, though, seeing as you both are still alive?”

Nemuri feels herself scowl as she remembers that one-word letter. “Yes, _fine.”_

Tensei lets out a confused noise. When Nemuri turns toward him, his eyes keep flickering between Shinji, Nemuri and the Hufflepuff table.

“Are… talking about Takeyama?” he asks.

Shinji laughs as he replies, “Who else?”

“... I thought the two of you didn’t get on,” he says, eyebrows drawn together in a confused frown.

Shinji shakes his head. “Well, we didn’t at first. But she’s really not so bad, so now we’re… friends, but also rivals?” He shrugs. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it works.”

“...Right, I get it. I think,” Tensei says. It’s very clear that he, in fact, does not get it.

He seems satisfied with Shinji’s answer, though, because he turns toward Nemuri, an eyebrow raised inquisitively.

She squirms, until his gaze finally causes her to relent. Cursing up a storm in the privacy of her own mind — saying them out loud isn’t worth the hypocritical lecture Tensei’d give her — and glaring at him, she sighs.

“I wanted to apologize,” Nemuri explains, feeling thoroughly annoyed — and more than a little embarrassed. “So I sent her a letter, and I needed Shinji’s help to get her address. That’s all. Don’t read anything else into it. It was one letter of apology, and nothing else.”

(She tries very hard not to think about the sketchbooks still buried at the bottom of her trunk, and only mostly succeeds.)

Tensei raises his hands defensively. “Hey, I didn’t say anything,” he says, but he’s grinning. His grin softens, though, as he adds, “I’m glad you wrote her that letter, though.”

“Why?” Nemuri scoffs. “Because I was an idiot who went too far with a stupid prank?”

Tensei shrugs. “Maybe — that’s for you to know, really. I meant that you were clearly torn up about it last year, so it’s good that you’re trying to deal with it.” He smirks, his eyes twinkling like he knows something she doesn’t. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll even become friends now.”

“Yeah, somehow I doubt that.” Nemuri scoffs loudly. The very thought is ludicrous — Takeyama and herself, friends? In another world, _maybe._ “We exchanged _one_ letter, I don’t really think that’s any way to start anything. Besides, she’ll probably insult me again next time we meet, so I wouldn’t hold out hope too much.”

“Well, I think you never know,” Tensei retorts. “Maybe she’ll surprise you.” Shinji, on her other side, nods vigorously.

Nemuri feels her eyes narrow. “Okay, you two, what’s up? What are you hiding — not you, Shinji. _You."_ She points at Tensei. “Last year you were all about cursing Takeyama’s name and family, and tonight you want me to make friends with her? With my rival? What gives?”

Tensei chuckles sheepishly. “Look, _you_ ’re my friend, so of course, I’m going to be on your side with this. And obviously, if she’s still being —”

“An ass,” Nemuri interjects in an angry mutter.

“— unreasonable,” Tensei continues, sending her a pointed look to which Nemuri rolls her eyes, “you shouldn’t just forgive her. But maybe…” He shrugs. “Give her a chance? Not just for her — for yourself, too.”

His cheeks are a little flushed by the time he finishes, but he doesn’t look away until Nemuri shrugs and sighs. “I’ll think about it.”

Tensei grins like Nemuri’s just accomplished a miracle, and she rolls her eyes at him again.

“Wow, that was deep, Iida.” Shinji whistles, impressed.

Teasing, Nemuri adds in a fake-whisper, “That’ why he’s our year’s Prefect, you know.”

Shinji nods knowingly, like it makes perfect sense, and Nemuri chuckles.

Tensei, luckily for him, is saved by the Headmaster, who stands up and declare the Sorting over. He claps his hands, and food appears all over the tables.

Soon enough, they’re all too busy eating to speak much.

For some reason, though, Nemuri’s mind keeps wandering back to Tensei’s words. _A chance, huh?_ The idea makes her heart start racing in her chest, and that feels odd..

Still, maybe Tensei’s right. Maybe she _can_ give Takeyama another chance. After all, now that Nemuri’s had one whole summer to think about it, her grudge with the younger girl seems kind of… inconsequential. Petty.

Nemuri likes to think she can be better than this.

Her eyes wander back, once again, to Takeyama as she raises her glass to her lips and takes a sip of water.

 _One chance,_ she promises to herself. _I’ll give her one chance._

* * *

Nemuri’s first order of business as Captain is to hold auditions for the team. In an effort to be fair, all the positions are technically open, and every old player needs to do their best if they want to be taken back, but realistically, they’re really only looking for a new Chaser, to replace their previous Captain who graduated last year.

“Ugh!” Nemuri groans as she stares at all the paperwork she needs to fill to save the Pitch for the afternoon it’ll take to hold tryouts. Banging her head against a wall — or even the table — is starting to look more and more appealing. It’d feel so good when she’d stop.

She looks up at Tensei, who’s dutifully penning a Charms essay, and groans again, loudly, until he finally turns to look at her.

“What is it, Nemuri?” he asks, and to his credit, he only looks mildly exasperated with her antics. Truly, this boy is a saint.

Nemuri bats her eyelashes at him. “Is there any way you could fill these forms for me?” she asks, pushing the pieces of parchment toward him with a pout.

Tensei snorts, and pushes them back toward her without even taking one look at them. “Yeah, no, I don’t think so. You’re our fearless Captain, surely you can handle _some_ paperwork.” He smirks. “Don’t you know how much paperwork Aurors have to deal with? Because I can tell you it’s more than this.”

Scratch that angel bit — Tensei is very clearly some demonic entity, sent to Earth to torture her.

“Ugh, are you trying to kill my will to live?”

Tensei just laughs and shakes his head. He pats her on the arm. “Don’t worry, you’ll survive this.”

He sounds entirely too cheerful, and Nemuri scowls back at him before refocusing on that paperwork. Since Tensei is apparently going to be of no help whatsoever, it looks like it’s up to her to deal with this.

(She pointedly ignores the fact that it always was.)

Even though she doesn’t want to, she ends up filling in the forms quickly, in what she hopes is a semi-legible handwriting. It occurs to her after she’s handed them back to her Head of House for consideration that maybe she should have tried to have a clearer handwriting, but it’s too late for that now.

Besides, she’s pretty sure she handed in homework that was in much worse shape than this, and her teachers managed to grade _those_ just fine.

* * *

The Saturday of the tryouts dawns bright and early for Nemuri. She wishes it wouldn’t, but with most of her afternoon set aside for Quidditch, this means she has to deal with her homework beforehand — and this way, she’ll have tomorrow (mostly) free.

Still, even though she was plenty busy, Nemuri felt like the day dragged on and on and _on_ until it was finally time for the tryouts.

They do the hold positions first, and as expected, the current team members outplay their competition. Nemuri does make a mental note of the few younger students showing promise — maybe they can play reserve of something, and even if not, this might come in handy the next time the Gryffindor team has a vacant position.

Tensei puts forward one of his numerous cousins — the Iidas, bless their souls, are a huge family. A huge _Quidditch obsessed_ family, and while it means that Nemuri is hopeless when it comes to remembering all their names, it also means that at least someone at the auditions will have some talent.

It’s the boy who’d been with Tensei back when they met at Diagon’s Alley this summer, and from his cheeky grin as he gets in line with three other potential Chasers, Nemuri can tell he’d be a good fit for the team.

Even if having two Iidas might get a little confusing.

Tensei’s cousin — just Tohaku, as he insists they call him — is as good a player as Nemuri had expected, and though none of his opponents are any slouch either, he outflies them easily.

He does have the same name as Nemuri’s dad, which feels a little odd, but Nemuri’s sure she can get used to it.

All in all, though, the tryouts are shorter than she’d thought they’d be, and since everyone cleared their afternoon for this and the entire team’s here, she decides they can run through a few plays before dinner.

They don’t get to do much more than circling around the Pitch a few times before the Hufflepuff team shows up, all decked out and carrying their brooms, Takeyama in their lead.

For a moment, Nemuri feels a flash of fury so strong she can’t see — of course, Takeyama would do this, she thinks. Of course.

But Tensei’s eyes seem to bore a hole through the back of her head as she descends, and Nemuri takes a deep breath. _A chance._ She’d sworn she’d give Takeyama a chance.

She dismounts her broom, the rest of her team quietly landing behind her, their presence at her back a silent show of support.

“Takeyama,” she greets, her hand tight around her broom handle.

“Kayama,” Takeyama returns. She looks surprised to see the Gryffindors here, and kind of awkward too, to be honest, like she doesn’t really know why she’s here — like she’s not sure she wants to be here. That feeling vanishes swiftly, though, but Nemuri knows what she saw.

Somehow, it helps her unwind a little, and she rolls her shoulders.

“Why are you here?”

Takeyama squares her shoulders. “We reserved the Pitch for this evening,” she says, and before Nemuri can answer anything to that, Takeyama shakes her head ruefully. “Obviously, though, there’s been some kind of mix-up.”

“We were doing tryouts,” Nemuri hears herself say.

“Oh.” Takeyama’s shoulders slump, and she bites her lips as she turns toward her teammates.

For some reason, Nemuri can’t stop staring after her as Takeyama confers with her teammates.

“We’ll leave you be then,” Takeyama says when she finally turns back toward Nemuri, after one last sharp nod toward her team.

“We were done, actually. With the tryouts, I mean.” Nemuri bites her lips, heart racing in her chest. She’s not sure why she’s saying all this, but now that she’s started, she can’t really stop. “The Pitch is big enough for both teams, and there are only a couple hours left before dinner. We’re both here already, so why not… share?”

Takeyama’s purple eyes light up. “I — Really?”

Nemuri tries to shrug nonchalantly, looking back toward her own teammates, who suddenly pretend they haven’t been listening in. Well, most of them do — Tensei doesn’t bother to try, just shoots her an encouraging thumbs up.

“Yes,” Nemuri answers, and she finds that she’s warming up to the idea. “Maybe we could split the Pitch in two?”

This would, after all, give her a chance to observe Takeyama’s flying without resorting to actual spying. Of course, the reverse is also true, but Nemuri thinks it’s worth the risk.

“Or,” Takeyama starts, her violet eyes still so unfairly bright, “we could do a mock game? We wouldn’t use a Snitch, or Bludgers, obviously, but do have two hours, like you said.”

Nemuri feels herself grin. “Oh _yes!_ That’s a great idea.”

Takeyama grins back — but just for an instant. Then that smile falters, then fades, and she rocks back on her heels. Nemuri can’t help but feel wrong-footed here, and her grin falls too.

“Alright then!” Takeyama says, grinning again like nothing ever happened. “Let’s do it!”

Nemuri blinks, a little confused, but she shrugs. She can figure out Takeyama’s weird behavior later.

Things move quickly from here on out. They kind of have to, since they’re on a time limit. She and Takeyama agree on giving each team five minutes to brief on strategies, and then they’re up in the air and playing.

What follows has got to be the most ruthless and chaotic game of almost-Quidditch Nemuri’s ever played in.

It is also, coincidentally, the most fun.

Without having the Snitch to focus on, both she and Takeyama spend their times trying to break Chaser formations. The Beaters, who also don’t have a ball to play with, seem to unanimously decide to hit the Quaffle instead, and from there, there really is no saving that game.

Nemuri’s laughed so much that by the time they call an end to this so-called match, she’s out of breath, with a persistent stabbing pain in her side whenever she tries to breathe in too deep, and she nearly fell off her broom thrice.

That’s still better than Takeyama, though, who after taking a well-aimed Quaffle to the back off her head that somehow broke off her hair tie and left her unable to fix her hair without landing, almost fell half a dozen times.

That Nemuri saw, at least.

Nemuri thinks she catches Takeyama grinning at her as she brushes her hair out of her face before the other girl’s face smoothes over again, but she could be wrong.

She probably is, seeing as Takeyama isn’t smiling when they land — though her cheeks are still a cheerful red.

“That was fun!” Takeyama states.

“Yeah,” Nemuri replies, too out of breath to say much more.

Takeyama just stands there, silent, for a few moments before she nods stiffly. “Well, thank you for letting us share the Pitch with you guys,” she says, but this time, she’s not addressing Nemuri anymore. She’s talking to the whole team instead, and waving at them — a few players even wave back tentatively.

It makes something turn sour in Nemuri’s stomach, and she swallows heavily.

“You’re welcome,” Nemuri says anyway, but Takeyama barely sends a nod her way when she and her team trot out off the Pitch.

It leaves Nemuri feeling oddly bereft.

* * *

“Can you believe that Takeyama’s ignoring me now? What, she made Captain too and suddenly she’s too good for me? Last year she was all ‘old woman’ and ‘hope you don’t break your hip, Kayama’ with those, those smarmy grins on her face — but now she just ignores me?” Nemuri rages, biting back a wordless scream as she hits the table with her fists.

Hizashi’s hand shoots out just fast enough to catch Shouta’s inkwell before it spills all over the dark-haired boy’s essay — not quick enough, though, to prevent said boy from shouting her a death glare that freezes the blood in her veins and cuts her right off in her tirade.

Nemuri chuckles awkwardly. “Ah… Sorry?”

Shouta just scoffs at her before returning to his work.

“You know,” Hizashi says, carefully putting Shouta’s inkwell down again, “nobody actually wants a repeat of last year, with you two hating each other. Maybe she’s just trying to… distance herself?”

“Yeah,” Tensei agrees, “maybe she’s just trying really, really hard not to offend you anymore?”

Nemuri rolls her eyes at them. “Right, because after a year spent taking shots at me every chance she got, she suddenly changed her mind?”

She misses the look Hizashi and Tensei share as she rolls her eyes again. “Come on, that doesn’t make sense,” she says.

“Well, you’re not taking shots at her either,” Tensei points out.

“He does have a point.” Hizashi nods, his green eyes twinkling merrily as he sends her a pitying look.

Nemuri sputters. “I don’t — I didn’t _take shots at her!”_

“Sure you didn’t.” Tensei laughs as he pats her arm gently. “Sure you didn’t.”

“Also I didn’t _hate_ her.” She pouts.

If possible, Tensei and Hizashi look even less impressed by that answer.

“Right,” Hizashi drawls, “because you’re like that with everyone you ‘don’t hate’, of course.”

“Well, I —” She sputters again, crossing her arms defensively. “That doesn’t matter! What matters is, Takeyama thinks she’s better than me now — so what if she got made Captain a year before I did? That doesn’t mean anything! She’s still not that great a team player, and I’m still a better Seeker than her, and —”

She doesn’t realize her voice had been steadily rising until the Librarian suddenly appears, seemingly out of nowhere, and hisses at her to keep quiet or she’ll be thrown out.

Nemuri hides her discomfort behind a bright smile, and promises to keep it down.

Once the Librarian’s gone again, she turns back to her friends and apologizes with a sheepish grin.

Hizashi just chuckles. “It’s fine — at least, for once it’s not me she’s mad at.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t be so mad at you if you didn’t _shout_ every time you read something interesting, though,” Shouta suggests dryly, looking up from his work only long enough to send Hizashi a fond look.

Hizashi pouts. “You know I can’t help it! Everything is just so, so —”

“Interesting?”

“Fascinating?”

“‘Awesome’?”

“It’s hardly my fault magic is so, well, magical,” Hizashi retorts defensively.

“Hey, we’re not arguing that,” Tensei replies. “It’s just… you tend to get a little over-excited about it.”

“Like a puppy,” Nemuri adds, a smirk playing on her lips. “A cute, adorable puppy,” she adds, just to see the way Shouta’s cheeks turn pink as he ducks his head to hide a grin and how Hizashi turns red.

“I’m not a _puppy!”_

“Sorry, man, but you kind of are,” Tensei replies with a fake-apologetic grin.

“A cute one, though,” Nemuri says again, biting her cheeks so she doesn’t laugh too loudly.

Hizashi lets out a long sigh, dramatically clutching at his chest. “I can’t believe you two would go after me like this! Shouta, save me~!”

Shouta just rolls up his finished essay, shrugging. “Save yourself.” He smirks as Hizashi wails — somehow, quietly enough that the Librarian doesn’t return.

The conversation kind of devolves from there, though, and it takes a while for Nemuri to put it back on tracks.

“But seriously,” she asks, “what is up with Takeyama?”

Tensei and Hizashi exchange an oddly tense look, but Shouta sighs. At some point during the earlier conversation, he’d buried his head in his arms, dozing off on the table, but he’s wide awake now, and judging her.

“You know,” he says, “Takeyama’s life doesn’t revolve around you, Nemuri. Sometimes, she does things that aren’t just to piss you off.”

Nemuri opens her mouth to answer, but closes it again when her words fail her.

She doesn’t think Takeyama’s life revolves around her, does she?

She doesn’t realize she’s spoken out loud until Tensei winces and says, “You kind of do. A little.”

“Oh,” she says. “I didn’t realize.”

Tensei shrugs. “It’s fine — and I get it. She gets under your skin, right?”

“Yeah.” Nemuri nods, grimacing. “She kind of does.”

She falls silent after that, but her mind races, ruminating over Shouta’s words. They don’t quite… fit with what she understands of the situation, not to her. She can feel it, but she can’t really tell why, and it’s very frustrating.

Her friends are right — she had been assuming a lot when she said Takeyama’s actions were designed around Nemuri’s reactions. She still doesn’t think she was necessarily wrong to — despite what Shouta and Tensei said, there’s no way Nemuri doesn’t factor in Takeyama’s decisions when Nemuri was so affected by them — but she’s a little ashamed to realize how much importance she gave those facts.

She’ll do better from now on, though. She really will.

* * *

Sixth year is both easier and harder than fifth year.

It’s easier because Nemuri _finally_ got to drop the classes she hated, like History of Magic, or found kind of useless, like Herbology, in order to focus on the subjects she needs to become an Auror.

But it’s harder because the homework is harder, and despite having technically more free periods on her schedule than before, Nemuri finds herself constantly running after time. Being the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain is very rewarding, but it’s also a huge pain in the ass, and between that and the essays their teachers keep asking for, Nemuri doesn’t get much time to herself.

She definitely doesn’t know where all the weeks until their first Quidditch game went, though she welcomes the break in the monotony. A good match is just what she needs to get some peps back into her life.

The match is against Slytherin, which means it’ll be ruthless and quite dangerous, but Nemuri trusts her team. She knows what they’re capable of, and they can win this.

Heck, they can even win the Cup this year too, she’d bet on it!

The match lasts well over two hours, but everyone can tell the outcome by the first twenty minutes. Tohaku, Tensei and Shinji are a frightening Chaser team, and their Beaters are as good as ever — the Slytherins don’t stand a chance.

In the end, there’s such a large point difference between the two teams that Nemuri doesn’t even need to catch the Snitch for them to win — not that she would _not catch it_ , of course, because she does.

That win also means that unless the Gryffindor team loses by large amounts against both Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, they’re basically a shoe-in for the finals.

Nemuri grins for an entire week, and she finally feels like she can breathe. She hadn’t realized how stressed she had been over the Quidditch part of her life until now, but it feels really good to let that pressure go.

* * *

A week after their match against Slytherin, Nemuri is summoned to Shimura-san’s office after classes end.

She’s surprised, since Charms is her best subject, and by the time the appointment rolls around, she’s standing in front of the door, nervously wiping her sweaty palms on her robes.

It turns out she shouldn't have worried — or rather, not for the reasons she’d thought. Shimura-san just wanted to ask if Nemuri would be willing to tutor a younger student who was struggling with their OWLs coursework.

“It’s something I usually offer my sixth and seventh-year students,” Shimura-san explains with a smile. “You don’t have to do it, of course, but I count it as extra credit.” She goes on a bit to explain that Nemuri would also be excused from some of the homework for her class, but that she’d also be judged on her progress in the tutoring sessions.

“I — Can I think about it?”

Shimura-san looks quietly amused as she nods. “Of course. I’d expect you to. You can come to tell me your answer whenever you want — I’m usually in class or in this office — or you can wait until our next lesson.”

Nemuri thanks her and leaves.

It takes her all the way back to Gryffindor Tower to make a decision — no. If she’s honest with herself, Nemuri had made that decision the moment Shimura-san mentioned extra-credit and excuses for homework.

It’s still a big commitment though, and Nemuri uses the walk back to her Common Room to go over her timetable mentally. It should be fine. She has a couple of free hours some evening that she uses for Charms research and homework. Surely those will do for the tutoring.

She gives Shimura-san her answer the next day, and she’s so excited to start that her friends have taken to sending her concerned looks when they think she’s not looking.

Or at least, she’s excited until Shimura-san tells her the name of the student she’s supposed to be tutoring.

 _Takeyama Yuu._ Of course, it’s her. Nemuri chokes back a frustrated laugh. She doesn’t know why she expected anyone else.

“Will this be a problem?” Shimura-san asks, her eyes piercing as they flicker from Nemuri to Takeyama.

“No,” they both mutter.

“Good.” Shimura-san nods, before handing them both a packet. Takeyama’s is considerably thicker than her own, and Nemuri takes comfort in that.

“Kayama, this is a summary of what you need to know for the tutoring. I included the fifth-year’s Charms program, as well as the points I think Takeyama needs the most help with.”

She turns to Takeyama, who’s looking uncharacteristically uneasy, despite the bright grin on her face. “Takeyama,” Shimura-san says, “this includes the same thing, as well as the time periods Kayama will be free to tutor you. I also included the assignments you failed this year so far — I expect you to go over them and improve them. If you do well enough, they’ll replace your old grades.”

Takeyama nods sharply, her violet eyes glimmering with determination. “Thank you for this opportunity, sensei. I hope I won’t disappoint you.”

Shimura-san smiles kindly. “I know you won’t. Either of you. Now, off you go — if you miss dinner because of me, Nedzu will have my head.”

Nemuri and Takeyama don’t walk together to the Great Hall. They don’t really speak to each other, though Nemuri half attempts to start a quick conversation that dies down almost instantly.

She’s glad to be read of the awkward atmosphere between them when they part in front of the huge doors of the Great Hall — except for the parts of her that are not, and feel oddly disappointed.

* * *

“Wait, so you’re going to be _tutoring Takeyama?”_

It’s hard to say who looks more gleeful about this, Tensei or Hizashi, so Nemuri glares at them both.

“Yes, I am.”

“Wow, she must really be desperate,” Hizashi says. He yelps as Nemuri slaps his forearm and pouts when his pleading look to Shouta only gathers him an amused glare.

“Excuse you, I make a great tutor. I’ll be the best tutor she’s ever had.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Tensei replies kindly.

“... But seriously, was there nobody else they could ask?” Hizashi asks.

Nemuri sighs. “I have no idea — still, I’m taking this seriously, so you should too.”

She glares at her friends until they grunt out words of assentiment, and then she smiles beatifically.

Takeyama doesn’t know what’s coming for her — Nemuri’s definitely going to be the best tutor there ever was.

* * *

Nemuri decides to hold the first tutoring session on a Tuesday. She opts for the Library, thinking that if they need more books, they’ll be close by, and if they start fighting, there’ll at least be the threat of getting thrown out to keep them mostly in check.

She isn’t sure what she expected, but it isn’t what she gets. Takeyama is… subdued, somehow. She keeps averting her eyes so she doesn’t look at Nemuri, and she keeps her eyes riveted to her books like they’re holy texts rather than Charms textbooks.

She doesn’t say a single quip about Nemuri’s age, even though Nemuri can tell she wants to every time Nemuri mentions studying this or that spell last year. It is very confusing, and it has Nemuri feeling wrong-footed during the entire two hours their tutoring session runs for.

Not that she really has time to focus on that feeling much, because Takeyama is actually _terrible_ at Charms. Like, the worst Nemuri has ever seen — worse than she’d thought possible.

It’s not even that Takeyama’s spells fail in any consistent way. There’d been a Slytherin in her first-year class who’d caught everything on fire no matter the spell he tried, and Nemuri could have dealt with it if that had been Takeyama’s problem. But no.

From what she can tell, Takeyama’s Charms randomly work or fail, and even when they do work, they sometimes have odd, unintended side-effects. They’ve only had one tutoring lesson so far, and Nemuri’s already feeling ready to tear out her hair because _none of this makes sense._

“And you don’t have this type of problem with your other subjects?” Nemuri asks incredulously.

Takeyama scowls. “No — like I told you, this just happens with Charms.” She shrugs helplessly, biting her lips.

“Any idea why?”

“Nope,” Takeyama replies, popping the ‘p’ with a fake cheerful grin.

Nemuri sighs and shakes her head. “Well, then I guess we’ll start with theory and build our way up to the actual spellcasting.”

Takeyama looks about as enthused about that as Nemuri feels, and Nemuri’s lips quirk up into a grin.

“Come on”, she says, pulling Takeyama’s Charms textbooks closer, “tell me in your own words what you’ve covered already, and let’s see if I can help you with anything you didn’t get.”

Surprise flashes over Takeyama’s face for an instant before she covers it up with determination. “Alright. He’s where we started this year…”

* * *

“So, how did it go?” Tensei asks her, half-laughing, half-serious, when she stumbles back dazedly into the Gryffindor Tower after that first session.

“It… went,” Nemuri cautiously says.

Tensei laughs. “That bad, huh?”

Nemuri groans as she sits next to him, dropping her head onto her arms. _“Worse._ But we’re meeting again this Thursday, and again next week. Hopefully, by the end of the year, she’ll be able to actually scrap by a passing grade in her Charms OWLs.”

Tensei pats her on the head, and she can _hear_ the grin in his voice when he says, “Sounds like you’re having fun.”

Nemuri just groans back. She considers hexing him, but her brain still feels fried from so much studying.

She is _not_ having fun.

* * *

The odd thing is, Takeyama is… different, during their studying sessions. She listens to Nemuri, almost religiously so, and when she asks questions, said questions are polite.

There’s never a single trace of that smarminess Nemuri noticed when they interacted last year. No, their interactions are closer to that one time they actually seemed to get along.

It makes Nemuri’s stomach flutter at odd times, and she keeps catching herself smiling at nothing, even when Takeyama’s lack of understanding of concepts Nemuri’s always found easy to grasp get frustrating.

But what is weirder is the way Takeyama only behaves like this when they’re alone in the Library, and even then, not always. It’s like she’s trying to restrain herself — where last year, her exuberance felt forced, this year it’s entirely repressed, and to her surprise, Nemuri is finding that she’s not really a fan of either.

But she likes the glimpses of the _real_ Takeyama she gets during those lessons. It’s the Takeyama she saw that one time last year, and again when they held that impromptu sort of Quidditch match this year.

The real Takeyama is nice — much nicer than Nemuri would have expected, though she guesses the younger girl _is_ a Hufflepuff for a reason. She’s funny, too, in a way that kind of reminds Nemuri of Hizashi when her friend is feeling more sarcastic than usual.

And there is something about the way Takeyama’s eyes light up when she finally gets what Nemuri’s explaining that makes her chest hurt.

Nemuri’s not stupid — she knows what this is. She knows, but she doesn’t care, because this isn’t happening. Outside of tutoring, Takeyama is still ignoring her, and if Nemuri spends a little more time staring at her where before she used to glare…

Well, it’s not like anybody’s going to tell.

* * *

The Room of Requirement is perhaps the greatest thing about Hogwarts. Nemuri hadn’t believed Shouta when he’d told them about it — relating something the house-elves had told him, because of course, Shouta was the type to actually befriend all the house-elves in the school because he couldn’t sleep.

She certainly believes it now, as she has for the past three years they’ve used it for this.

Nemuri flops back on the bed the Room created for her with a content sigh — it’s a perfect mix of her bed in the Gryffindor Tower and her bed at home, and she wishes she could sleep there every night. Even if it’s large enough that she would probably get lost in it.

Sadly, she’s pretty sure her dormmates would notice it if she never slept in her bed. One night every few months is pushing it as it is.

“If you were just going to sleep, you could have done that in your dorm.” Shouta’s voice drags her from her thoughts, and Nemuri springs back to a sitting position, greeting her friend with a bright grin.

“Aw, come on Shouta, don’t be like that.” She pats the bed beside her, and Shouta stares at her dryly as he sits down, cross-legged.

“Why am I here again?” she hears him mutter, and her smile brightens even more.

“You’re here because you’re one of my best friends, and I don’t see enough of you now that you and Hizashi are dating — how’s that going, by the way?” she asks with an innocent smile.

She smirks triumphantly when Shouta’s cheeks turn pink.

“It’s going fine,” he replies with a grunt, ducking his head down a little.

“Good. I’m glad.” She considers teasing him a little more, but well, this is Shouta. There’s always a chance he wouldn’t take this kind of teasing well, and the last thing she wants to do is hurt her friend.

She still can’t resist but add, “Can’t believe I didn’t even have to lock you two in a room to get you to see the light, though.”

For some reason, that seems to make Shouta’s blush deepen, but Nemuri ignores that in favor of the spread out tiny bottles of nail polish in front of her, lying on a pile between her and Shouta on the bed sheet.

She picks through the different colors, trying to figure out which one she wants to go for. They’re all gifts from her friends — mostly Shouta, who gets her the Muggle brands that are actually way better than anything magical, though the lack of moving pictures is kind of a downside — and she always has the hardest time deciding on what to do.

She holds out a red bottle, watching as the light makes it shine like rubies. “What do you think?”

Shouta sends her his driest, most unimpressed look. “Do you have anything that screams Gryffindor even _more_?”

Nemuri pouts as she puts down the bottle. “Hey, at least I didn’t go with red _and_ gold. And red is always classy, anyway.”

Shouta shrugs. “If you want to go with red, go with red. I’m not stopping you.”

Nemuri sighs, but she doesn’t pick the red again. She briefly considers trying the Slytherin grin, if only for the face Shouta would pull when she’d pretend she wants to, but in the end, she decides on a nice midnight blue. She can even put tiny silvers dots on them, and she knows a charm she can use to make them twinkle like little stars.

“What about you?” she asks as she puts those bottles away. “What colors do you want?”

She’s only half-joking. Even though she and Shouta have these not-pajama parties often enough that it’s kind of a tradition for them — Merlin, she can’t even remember how this even got started — Shouta rarely agrees to put on nail polish or have her do his hair. It’s not that he doesn’t like it, he just doesn’t like the time it takes to do it by hand when there are spells with the same effects.

This time, though, Shouta just shrugs and tells her to pick.

“You’re no fun,” she grunts, but despite this, Shouta dismisses her first five picks with an incredulous eyebrow.

They end up settling on a bright blue, which isn’t the color Nemuri would have first thought off, but she can see how it will look once it’s done, and she likes it.

“You know, you could have just said this was the one you wanted.” Nemuri huffs out a laugh.

Shouta smirks, like the little shit that he actually is. “It was more fun this way, though.”

Nemuri shakes her head, and starts to do her nails — and because it’s her, she ends up talking about Quidditch. And Takeyama. Both are a pretty big part of her life right now, since Gryffindor just won — if barely — its match against Ravenclaw, and she’s still tutoring Takeyama.

“I still don’t understand why everyone likes this sport so much. It’s illogical.”

Nemuri laughs — she’s heard this complaint from her friend often enough that if she lets him, Shouta will start ranting about the point system in Quidditch again, and how having the Snitch be worth one hundred and fifty makes no sense whatsoever. She’s honestly almost tempted to let him, because his frustration is entertaining.

“Hizashi’s been talking your head off about the games again, hasn’t he?”

Shouta scowls. “Yes.”

“Well, that’s what you get for dating the guy commenting on all the matches.” Nemuri laughs quietly as she puts the last touch on her nails. The dark blue polish shimmers in the light, and Nemuri blows on her fingers lightly.

“You know that won’t make it dry faster, right?”

Nemuri rolls her eyes at Shouta, nodding toward the wand he put on the bed beside him. “Why don’t you help, then?”

“Didn’t you say drying charms made the polish brittle?” Shouta notes as he nonetheless picks up his wand.

“Aw, so you _were_ listening to me — and it’s fine, I don’t mind. With Quidditch, it’ll probably chip in a couple of days anyway.”

Shouta shrugs. “As you wish then.”

“Thanks,” Nemuri tells him seconds later, as she admires her nails. They’re perfectly dry, and she sets to apply the silver dots.

The work is soothing, and since her mind is still on Quidditch from earlier, Nemuri finds herself talking about it again. Shouta humors her.

“I’m just… I don’t know… Kind of looking forward to our rematch with Hufflepuff? I know Takeyama’s team is good, and they’ve been training — no way you can give me a scoop, by any chance?” She flutters her eyelashes at her friends, but Shouta simply stares back blankly.

“No.”

Nemuri heaves a sigh as she keeps applying the shiny topcoat on her nails. “Fine. Anyway, I think we’re ready? And we can definitely win.”

“But?”

“But Takeyama’s been acting kind of weird lately. She’s been… distant, I guess?” She sighs as Shouta dries her nails again, and she gestures at him to lay his hand on her thigh so she can start doing his nails.

“It’s just — I don’t get her!” She twists the cap a little too strongly, and winces as she almost spills the bottle over her hands. “Last year all she could do was mock me, but this year she’s ignoring me? But then during our lessons she’s not —”

“That would be kind of awkward, wouldn’t it?” Shouta interjects dryly.

“Well, yes,” Nemuri relents with a frown. “But it’s more than that? She actually interacts with me then. And at first I thought maybe she was still mad at me for the way last year ended, even though her letter this summer seemed to say she wasn’t, but it doesn’t seem like she even remembers it?

“And I know you guys told me she probably wasn’t actually thinking she’s better than me, but it’s what makes the most sense?” She scowls as she bends over Shouta’s hand, trying to keep her hands steady. “There’s got to be _some_ logic behind her behavior.”

For a moment, Shouta stays still, silently breathing. “Remember when I used to say I hated Hizashi because he was loud?” he asks, his tone matter of fact.

Nemuri nods slowly, frowning as she tries to guess where he’s going with that.

“Well, you’re doing the same with Takeyama right now.”

Nemuri falters for an instant, almost putting polish all over Shouta’s finger rather than on his nail, before she gathers herself. She lifts the brush, and sighs pointedly. “Okay, what is it with my friends and saying I hate Takeyama? I don’t _hate_ her.”

Shouta rolls his eyes. “Right, you just ‘strongly dislike her’ then. That’s not really any better.”

Nemuri bites her lips so she doesn’t correct him, but her silence feels just as telling, and Shouta’s eyes sharpen.

“Oh,” Shouta says. “I see.” Nemuri doesn’t need to look at him to know that if she does, his lips will be twisted into that weird toothy grin of his.

She scowls, staring at the brush she’s still holding instead. “Yeah.” She doesn’t deny it. Anyone else, and she probably would have tried — though knowing her friends, they’d have seen right through her anyway — but Shouta definitely wouldn’t believe any denial attempt she might make.

She twists the cap back on on the nail polish bottle, and clenches it tight in her first. On her leg, only three of Shouta’s five nails are painted blue, but she’s got the feeling she’d do a terrible job at the last two if she tried right now.

“Look, I don’t know how it happened, okay? I don’t even _like_ her — she’s, she’s —”

“Exhausting? Infuriating? Exasperating?”

 _“Yes! Exactly!”_ says Nemuri, and it’s only as the words leave her lips that she realizes what Shouta’s just done. She deflates.

“You do know I once said the exact same things about Hizashi, right?”

“Yeah, I realized that.” She scowls again. “But that was different — you and Hizashi were friends, _even_ when you were pretending you didn’t actually like him.”

“Then why don’t you become her friend then?

Nemuri’s mouth runs dry. “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it? You’re good at making friends, aren’t you? Isn’t that like your ‘superpower’?”

“Hey, I was eleven when I said that — you guys need to stop bringing it up!” She tries to scowl again, but her lips keep twitching up.

Shouta just shrugs, staring at her until Nemuri sighs, defeated. “Fine. I guess I can try?” She doesn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but it does.

She hopes it’s not a sign her endeavor is doomed to fail, but she doesn’t hold out much hope.

Takeyama probably doesn’t even want to be friends, anyway.

Shouta wriggles his fingers on her leg, calling her back to order. “Oh, right.” Nemuri laughs sheepishly. “I should probably finish that.”

“Probably, yes,” Shouta retorts dryly.

(Nemuri’s happy to see that the finished product looks as good as she thought it would, and she smirks smugly when the next day, Hizashi compliments Shouta on his nails and asks him — loudly — if maybe he’d like to do Hizashi’s.

Nemuri almost interrupts to save him, because Shouta is _terrible_ at painting nails, but well. Hizashi’s dating Shouta now. There are some things he should figure out on his own.)

* * *

Nemuri means to try to befriend Takeyama, she really does. It’s just that, well, with their match coming up soon and the tension building up around it — plus Takeyama having a big Charms exam coming up soon — falling back on their old rival routine comes out easier.

She doesn’t even really know what she says that leads to Takeyama shooting her such a dark look — her mouth kind of run away from her there for a bit — but it leaves Nemuri feeling like an idiot as Takeyama storms off.

Even worse is that she can’t stop staring after Takeyama as she leaves, because somehow Takeyama really, really makes the Hogwarts uniform works for her.

* * *

The morning of the match, Nemuri can’t swallow a single bite of her breakfast. Tensei keeps pushing food toward her, but Nemuri’s throat is too tightly wound to do more than sip at her pumpkin juice and nimble at a piece of toast. She has the feeling that if she tried anything heavier her stomach would revolt.

Her eyes wander the room for Takeyama, but she looks away as soon as she finds that distinctive blond hair.

“Ready?”

Tensei’s voice, soft and kind, snaps her out of her haze, and Nemuri smiles. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

And she is. The entire team is — they’ve trained for this. They all want to win this match and qualify for the finals, to win the Cup for Gryffindor again this year.

They also have the advantage of their large point lead, thanks to their two previous matches. There are still two other matches before the final games for the Cup, of course, but unless they lose this match with no points whatsoever, they’re pretty much guaranteed a place in the finals already.

They’re lucky, too. Yesterday the weather was terrible and Nemuri feared they might have to play while it rained, but today’s weather is nice and sunny, if freezing cold.

But it’s February, and that’s to be expected for the season, really. They have warming charms, they’ll be fine.

* * *

Nemuri doesn’t know how she even sees the Bludger coming — she wasn’t looking for it, too busy looking around the Pitch for the tiny golden glimmer of the Snitch, and it’s coming from way behind her.

But somehow, she sees it — and the instant she does, she knows that Takeyama won’t be able to avoid it, that it’ll hit the other girl right in the back.

At this height… The fall could kill her, or at the very least seriously injure her. The teachers would try to catch her, of course — that’s what they’re here for — but what if they _miss?_ What if they fail?

Nemuri’s moving before the thought has even finished registering, bent over her broom as she urges it to go faster.

Hizashi’s shouting something, but Nemuri can’t hear him. Maybe it’s a warning, or perhaps he believes she’s spotted the Snitch. She should be so lucky.

The impact hurts. It’s not the first time Nemuri’s taken a Bludger — it kind of comes with the job — but it’s not exactly something you can get used to. Also, she can tell that it’s particularly bad this time, because her left arm isn’t really answering her anymore. At least not without excruciating pain.

She doesn’t need to look to know it’s broken.

Takeyama, who’d started yelling at her when she’d spotted Nemuri flying right at her, hovers close now, her face ashen.

Nemuri tries to smile. “I’m fine,” she says, keeping her arm tucked against her side. It feels like the world has gone silent, and it takes her a while to realize that it’s because the stands are silent.

The referee calls for a timeout, and Nemuri’s entire team follows her down. They barely wait for her to dismount her broom before they swarm her, Tensei the most concerned of them all.

He takes one look at her arm and the ginger way Nemuri’s holding it, and winces. “You need to go to the Hospital Wing!” he says.

The pain has mostly faded though, and as long as she keeps breathing shallowly, it’s manageable. “I’m fine,” Nemuri repeats. “I’ll go when the match is over.”

“Nemuri, I really don’t think —” Tensei starts, alarmed.

“Miss Kayama, I can’t in good conscience allow you to —” the referee starts.

Nemuri scowls off her their concern. _“Ferula,”_ she says, interrupting them. The spell wraps her arm in a sling, and she lets out a long, relieved breath. She conjures a scarf and, gingerly placing her arm inside it, she glares down at her team. “It’s just a broken arm. I can keep playing.”

“But –"

“I can keep playing,” she repeats, grin too wide to be polite.

Wisely, her teammates step away, and she climbs back up on her broom.

It’s… To call it uncomfortable would be too kind. Even with the splint keeping her arm tucked against her waist and restraining its moves, flying keeps jostling it. Flying with only one hand on the broom isn’t the easiest thing either — she’ll have to practice it — and Nemuri’s only just now realizing that she has no idea how she’ll be able to catch the Snitch if it means she’ll have to let go of her broom.

She’s willing to try, though. She can withstand a little pain.

The Gryffindor team is on fire around her. At first, she’d sense confusion and doubt, but seeing her grit her teeth and keep on playing anyway seems to galvanize them, because they fly faster, hit harder, make better passes.

For a few moments, Nemuri even believes that they can actually win this.

But they don’t.

It comes to a race between Nemuri and Takeyama, and well, those are close even when Nemuri’s at her best. And right now, even though she tries to pretend, she’s definitely not at her best.

So they lose — of course, they do — and her teammates rush her to the Hospital Wing.

It’s fine though — they lost, yes, but the Chasers scored enough goals to make sure they’ll be in the finals.

Maybe, with some luck, they’ll even get a rematch against Hufflepuff.

* * *

Takeyama visits her Infirmary. As it turns out, Nemuri’s continued playing had made it impossible for the nurse to fix it easily, so she’s vanished the bones in her arms entirely, and now Nemuri’s stuck here overnight.

It’s not so bad so far, though she’s been promised a rather tough night.

“You took a Bludger for me,” Takeyama says. Her eyes are dark and beautiful, and Nemuri can’t get a read on them.

She scoffs.  “Don’t flatter yourself, Takeyama.” She’d cross her arms, but considering one of them was just broken, and is still healing, that sounds like a bad idea. “I didn’t do it for you.”

Her stomach churns, and the lie tastes oddly bitter in her mouth. She scowls.

“Right.” Takeyama rolls her eyes, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow at Nemuri. “Because you take Bludgers for other players _all the time._ Players from the opposite team, at that.”

Nemuri bristles defensively, but she can’t think of anything good to answer to that. She has to stay silent or incriminate herself — though incriminate what, she isn’t sure — but Takeyama seems to take her silence as proof of whatever she wanted to see, because she smiles.

It makes her look almost soft, and Nemuri’s stomach churns again.

(She’ll need to ask _what_ exactly, was in that Potion she took, and if these issues are common.

Sadly, she has a feeling that they’re not.)

“I’d be a pretty poor teacher if I let my only student get killed by a bludger while I stand by and watch,” Nemuri says, trying to save face.

Takeyama just snorts. “Whatever you say, Kayama. Whatever you say.” Her face softens. “Anyway, whatever your reasons, thanks. I mean, I probably wasn’t in _that_ much danger with all the teachers around, and you _probably_ wouldn’t have won the match even if you hadn’t done that, but thanks. Really.”

Nemuri’s mouth runs dry. “You’re welcome,” she blurts out.

Takeyama nods. She’s still smiling, a bright upturn of her lips that should be illegal, and she pats Nemuri’s bed once before turning around to leave.

Her cheeks are a little pink, and Nemuri’s heart won’t stop racing.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.” She blurts out the words as Takeyama’s almost reached the door, and she swears when the girl stops, Nemuri’s heart stops with her.

“What?”

The Hospital Wing is empty but for the two of them, and Takeyama’s voice echoes.

Nemuri licks her lips. “Earlier, when I took that Bludger — I wasn’t thinking. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Takeyama looks at a loss for an instant, and Nemuri grits her teeth.

 _You’re good at making friends,_ Shouta’s voice says in her head. _It’s like your superpower._

But dear Merlin, why is it so hard right now?

“Why?” Takeyama asks. She steps closer.

“I’d like it if we could be… friends. Friendly?”

It’s only because she’s spent so much time staring at Takeyama’s violet eyes that Nemuri sees the flash of longing there. It only lasts for an instant, less than a second, really, but Nemuri knows what she saw.

And it’s that flash of longing that makes her say, “Or more? If — if you’d like?”

Nemuri hates how this conversation has her feeling so awkward and unsure, so unlike herself. This is why she doesn’t do feelings — well, not romantic ones anyway.

“I — Yes! But wait, really?” Takeyama is gaping. “But I thought you hated me?”

Nemuri scowls. If she could, she’d cross her arms, but since she can’t, she settles for glaring. “I don’t hate you — I never did,” she admits with a wry smile. “You just… got on my nerves. A lot.”

Takeyama rubs her neck, laughing sheepishly. “Ha! Sorry about that then? I wasn’t meaning to.”

Something about the way she says that rings a bell though, and Nemuri frowns as she tries to go over their previous interactions. Her mouth falls open.

“Wait, were you _flirting_ with me?”

Takeyama’s laugh turns louder. “Wh — Me? Noo, never. I — What gave you that idea?”

“Oh Merlin, you _were!”_ Nemuri doesn’t quite know what to do with this revelation, to be honest — when she’d asked Takeyama if she wanted something more than friendship earlier, she’d been going off on a hunch.

She hadn’t once considered that Takeyama had been interested in her all along.

Takeyama’s cheeks flush red. “Look, I just — I liked you okay? You were… You were this cool, _slightly_ older girl, and you were hot. Are hot. And then you told me — god, I don’t even know, something about me not being a team player or something, and I just… kind of lost it? And maybe went a bit overboard after that.”

Nemuri’s mouth snaps shut with a click. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” Takeyama’s mouth twist into a grimace. “That probably wasn’t my brightest moment.”

“I thought you were hot when I first saw you at that party,” Nemuri replies. It’s kind of like an out of body experience, to be honest, and she blames this entire situation on the Potions she’s had to take.

Takeyama laughs. “So what you’re saying is we’re both hopeless then?”

Nemuri shrugs, feeling a grin tease at her lips. “I don’t know,” she says. “You did say yes, didn’t you? To —”

“‘More’?” Takeyama quotes with a grin. “I did, yes.”

Nemuri very carefully doesn’t sigh in relief. “Good. Great. That’s great.” She feels so light she’s almost certain she should be flying. “Then I guess we’re not that hopeless after all, Takeyama.”

“Yuu.”

“What?”

“My name. If we’re —”

“Dating?” Nemuri suggests with a leer. Takeyama — _Yuu_ rolls her eyes.

“If we’re _dating_ ,” she says, “then you might as well call me Yuu.”

Nemuri licks her lips. “And you can call me Nemuri.”

Yuu ends up staying until Madam Shuzenji comes back and kicks her out. She sits by Nemuri’s bed and holds her hand — the one that still has bones, of course — and it’s nice.

It’s very, very nice.

* * *

(bonus)

Nemuri has Plans for their first date. Real, actual plans that don’t involve being derailed by Yuu dragging her into a cupboard for a makeout session.

Those plans involved going to Hogsmeade by taking a carriage — said carriage has probably already left now too, and the next Hogsmeade weekend isn’t for another month. They could sneak out, sure, but that wouldn't be the same — also, Nemuri can’t be sure the shop owners won’t report back to the Headmaster that two students aren’t where they’re supposed to be.

It is very hard to think about those plans, however, when Yuu is currently kissing her so urgently, her hands warm and heavy in Nemuri’s hair.

Having to part for air is perhaps the cruelest part of all this, but it gives Nemuri a chance to _think._

“You know,” she says, still a little breathless, “I always figured I would be the one to drag _you_ into a cupboard one day.”

It’s hard to see because of the darkness, but Nemuri can tell that Yuu’s smirking smugly. Her breath is wet and warm against Nemuri’s neck, and Nemuri shivers.

“You can have the next time,” Yuu replies, and yes, she’s definitely smirking.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Nemuri says, before her lips find Yuu’s again.


End file.
